Chapter 21
“The prices looked suspicious.”
Im Sanghyeon tilted his head.
“Not strange... suspicious?”
“Yeah. The prices Lee Sejun is supplying at look suspicious.”
“What do you mean?”
I had compared the prices I was offering to the largest food-supply mart in Honam with the prices Lee Sejun had given the Damyang mart.
They were almost the same.
That alone was enough to make me suspicious.
I remembered how hard I had worked to convince Manager Kwon to approve those prices for me.
Getting company approval for prices that low had required several steps.
There had also been a condition.
The client had to guarantee a massive minimum order quantity.
Yet Lee Sejun had offered nearly the same prices to a small food-supply mart in Damyang.
That made no sense.
I clicked my tongue.
“The prices Lee Sejun gave the Damyang food-supply mart... how did he get permission to go that low?”
“Lower than yours?”
“No. Almost the same.”
“How much?”
I immediately thought of one product.
“You know WG Bagged Fish Cake?”
“What's the usual supply price for that?”
Im Sanghyeon answered instantly.
“1,500 won.”
I nodded.
“Right. That was my average too.”
“What about the big food-supply mart you just signed?”
“No. That's the lowest price I've ever used.”
“1,200 won.”
His mouth dropped open.
“Seriously? You're supplying it at 1,200?”
“Yeah. I've never used a price that low before.”
“Wow. There can't be many clients receiving it that cheaply.”
“Exactly.”
Im Sanghyeon raised his eyebrows.
“That food-supply mart must really be enormous if they approved 1,200 won.”
“Yeah. I talked to Manager Kwon.”
“He said if I secured the minimum order quantity, we could supply at that price.”
“Well, if it's big enough to be called the largest food-supply mart in Honam, the order volume should be huge.”
“I hope so.”
I smiled.
“No. It will be.”
He gave me a thumbs-up.
“Of course it will.”
Then he tilted his head.
“So how much is Lee Sejun charging the Damyang food-supply mart?”
I bit my lip.
“1,250 won.”
“What?”
He frowned in disbelief.
I also clicked my tongue.
“There's only a fifty-won difference between the price I'm offering to the largest food-supply mart in Honam and the price he's offering to a tiny Damyang mart.”
“That's why it feels weird.”
Im Sanghyeon immediately agreed.
“Yeah. Why is his price that low?”
“Exactly.”
“Fifty won isn't much of a difference. And honestly, I've never even used 1,250 before.”
“Me neither.”
The normal price was around 1,500 won per bag.
To an ordinary consumer, a difference of a few hundred won might not seem huge.
But in corporate supply contracts...
A difference of tens or hundreds of won per unit could become enormous.
Because we were not selling one or two bags.
We were signing contracts for thousands.
Sometimes tens of thousands.
That meant the total difference could become massive.
A lower price was only possible when the client promised a higher purchase quantity.
My food-supply mart contract was exactly like that.
They received a lower price.
In exchange, they had to meet a minimum order volume.
Otherwise, the company would lose money.
It was the same principle as getting a discount when buying in bulk.
“Is the Damyang food-supply mart really ordering that much?”
Im Sanghyeon asked.
I immediately opened a map on my phone.
“Look.”
“I know you can't say a business will fail just because of the location.”
“But we have years of experience. We can make a reasonable judgment.”
He nodded.
“Of course.”
He stared at the map.
“This place... isn't it way too isolated?”
“Yeah. That's what I thought.”
“There aren't really apartments or houses nearby.”
“The store itself isn't very large either.”
“Right. I already heard the store was small.”
“But the location is worse than I expected.”
Im Sanghyeon frowned.
“How much product could a place like this possibly order to justify that price?”
“Exactly.”
“It feels wrong.”
“Yeah.”
He rubbed his chin.
“For a client this size, the company might lower the price to maybe 1,400 won at best.”
“But honestly, something around the normal 1,500-won range makes more sense.”
“Exactly.”
“And it's not just the bagged fish cake.”
“There are a lot of products.”
“He offered low prices across the entire contract.”
“That doesn't make sense.”
We could both feel something was wrong.
But we still had no proof.
“I need to know why they approved those prices.”
“I'm curious too.”
“How much product is that Damyang mart actually ordering?”
“And if that's not the reason... what is?”
“There's something here.”
“I just don't know what.”
Im Sanghyeon suddenly snapped his fingers.
“Inwoo.”
