Fortunately, it all worked out by a lucky stroke.

Actually, Shen Cuiyue’s bag was brought to Pingjing specifically to carry photographs.

Aside from the sales status reports of feminine hygiene products across various market levels intended for the All-China Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives, the rest were "contest entries" shot by that photo studio in Jiangzhou.

Although other photography enthusiasts weren't strictly limited in how many prints they could mail in, nobody else ever got the chance to have a co-organizer directly place a huge stack right on the table for the organizers and co-organizers to review.

Moreover, this organizer only held the naming rights because of the backing of the nation's premier color film project, and being based out of Jicheng City outside the capital, they lacked any real dominant influence.

It was clearly a scheme whipped up by Rang Weidong and the newspaper office, making this a pure, windfall opportunity for a new product launch recommendation.

Consequently, their attitude was exceptionally accommodating—people from Jicheng naturally adopted a cooperative attitude whenever they came to the capital.

The director directly had the driver carry over two large boxes of film: "These are for the newspaper office and Weidong to test out. They're all color rolls, and we plan to price them at fourteen yuan on the market. Moving forward, Weidong's side can get the color rolls at a wholesale price of nine yuan, with priority supply guaranteed—however many you need, you'll get. As for the Sunlight Daily, we'll fully cover all their daily usage needs."

Zhang Lingyun and the others immediately exchanged glances filled with pleasant surprise.

The procurement cost for the distribution system was indeed generally around sixty percent, a standard ratio maintained by department stores and supply and marketing cooperatives.

While it wasn't as exaggerated as the twenty to thirty percent wholesale margins seen later in the footwear and apparel industries, it still left a decent margin for the distribution system.

The crucial point was that film was a true consumable. Once a camera was put into use, a single user would go through multiple rolls in a year.

Selling a camera was a one-time transaction, but film required continuous consumption.

This was the "brilliant core" that Rang Weidong had been instilling in everyone during dinner and late-night chats the previous night, revealing that the true money-making potential of the fully automatic production line next door actually lay in consumables.

Seeing that a single roll of film could leave a five-yuan margin for distribution, everyone was naturally ecstatic.

Even if the company took a cut, it would still leave the salespeople with a handsome profit.

Only Shen Cuiyue watched as Rang Weidong rapidly sketched notes on the paper in front of him with a pen.

His other hand held a brand-new roll of film.

Then, returning courtesy for courtesy, he proposed: "Next week, our small production line in Pingjing will also begin trial manufacturing. We'll take care of all the usage needs for both the newspaper office and the film factory first."

The men who had come from the film factory looked on with curiosity: "What kind of production line is Weidong trial-manufacturing?"

The people from the newspaper office chuckled: "Women's sanitary napkins. Hahaha, you'd never imagine this fellow is actually tinkering with that back home."

Rang Weidong then began to output his thoughts in front of his own people: "I am currently the Deputy Sales Director of the Xishan Camera Factory, which is undergoing restructuring from the Xishan Optical Instrument Factory. We are striving to increase our weekly production capacity to twenty thousand units within this year, meaning we will aim for over a million cameras sold nationwide next year. Naturally, following that, we hope Triumphant Film can also push for ten million in sales."

The people from the Jicheng Triumphant Film Factory—consisting of seven or eight people who had just arrived in two cars and settled down for pleasantries—were completely dumbfounded.

Then, led by their factory director, they burst into warm, enthusiastic applause!

In reality, without the sudden "industrial partner" of inexpensive cameras, the research and development timeline for Triumphant Film would have been pushed back even further.

As a globally mature international product, and with film being something the factory had already been producing for decades, developing the color-sensitive coating was arduous, but it wasn't the kind of blind groping required for a brand-new invention.

Everything had overseas products as a reference point.

The real crux was whether there would be a market for it once produced, and whether it could achieve sales scale.

In a domestic market as poor as a church mouse, cameras were luxury goods—how many people could afford to use color film?

At that time, the national production volume for black-and-white film had only just reached the tens of millions.

Yet importing millions of rolls of color film required draining hundreds of millions of US dollars in foreign exchange!

They had never dared to dream of reaching a million rolls within a year or two.

Carving out a tenth of the market from foreign name brands and managing to stand their ground would have already been a victory.

However, once millions of cameras were explosively sold—even if a significant portion was driven by novelty—the consumption volume could easily surpass ten million.

How could they not be excited?!

Zhang Lingyun and the others felt as though their worldviews had been shattered internally: tens of millions of rolls of film, with a profit of five yuan each...

Who would have thought that Rang Weidong's next move would wipe out that profit entirely? "But the original intention behind the X-camera is to be the people's camera, allowing the masses to enjoy recording the bits of beauty in their daily lives. Therefore, we plan to drive the retail price down to twelve yuan. I wonder if that will have any impact on the factory."

The newspaper office was naturally the first to applaud.

In their eyes, what kind of noble spirit was this? Actively lowering prices to benefit the common people meant sacrificing one's own profits. The manufacturer and the consumers would benefit, and ultimately, domestic products would win out, delivering a severe blow to the market share of imported film.

The film factory was equally incredulous. Were they passing up money they could easily make? They looked at each other in dismay, wondering if they had truly encountered some selfless, ultra-red-and-expert paragon of virtue.

Even the factory director and his team joined in the applause.

On the other hand, the head of the sales section sitting nearby immediately frowned: "Hold on, Weidong, if you do this, won't you completely screw over the sales department at our factory?"

This goes to show that beneath seemingly glorious circumstances, someone is always getting hurt.

Rang Weidong countered with a question: "Before the color film came out, what kind of nationwide civilian product sales performance did the factory's sales department have?"

The sales section head was left speechless.

The factory director stepped in to explain: "In the past, we mainly supplied film to movie studios. Black-and-white film was also the assigned quota of the Shanghai, Jiangsu-Zhejiang, and Fujian plants, and we also bore the burden of many specialized films like infrared film. Therefore, tackling civilian color film is a brand-new challenge for our sales section."

Rang Weidong cut straight in: "Imported film currently generally goes for twenty-five to twenty-eight yuan each. If we're going to strike, we should strike all the way to the root in one go. If I weren't considering the factory's sales department, I'd even want to push the retail price down to ten yuan. This answers why we were tinkering with selling sanitary napkins just now—when we have several civilian products to sell simultaneously, the sales system can be shared. The rest of the salespeople can just take a break, and the factory can save on those expenses. We won't block any sales channels that proactively seek out the factory to pick up goods either. Once our sales take off, the factory can just sit back as countless cargo trucks arrive to pick up merchandise—what need is there for a sales department then? Every ounce of human labor should be poured into expanding production!"

This approach essentially foreshadowed modern sales outsourcing, helping the manufacturer concentrate all its energy on production, ensuring quality, and driving down costs.

Of course, the drawback was that all sales channels would be entirely controlled by someone else.

In later eras, any brand with even the slightest bit of ambition would never agree to having their lifeline pinched by outsiders.

Yet at this moment, factories still entirely immersed in a planned economy mindset—from the Red Light Factory, Xishan Factory, to the Postal and Telecommunications Equipment Factory—raised no objections whatsoever, instead feeling that it simplified matters.

Perhaps because the Triumphant Factory was located near the capital, their vigilance remained slightly higher, primarily manifested in the disgruntled sales section head: "What happens to us if you stop selling them in the future? If you use this sales monopoly to threaten us, wouldn't you have complete freedom to do whatever you want?"

He probably had no idea what he was about to forfeit.

In Rang Weidong's eyes, cameras, radios, and film were all merely tools to make a quick buck at this stage.

These items were destined to be phased out; their current peak popularity would eventually lead to a precipitous collapse.

In the past, Rang Weidong might have remained indifferent to the fate of the Xishan Factory, but now he actually cared a little.

As for the film... just as this remark had the factory director and others deep in thought, Rang Weidong effectively abandoned them.

Once that kind of calculation entered the picture, whether you lived or died was none of his business.

Note that this was one of Rang Weidong's core personality traits.

Whether in relationships between men and women or between enterprises, he possessed an extremely sensitive threshold for trust.
Right now, he wore a very relaxed smile: "Let the Sunlight Daily bear witness. We'll sign a ten-year sales agreement: as long as you don't raise your prices, we will never withdraw our sales efforts. If you want to cultivate your own sales system, go ahead—together, we can build the number one domestic film brand and even storm the world stage. Ten years from now, we can check in on each other's situations and discuss a second round of sales agreements?"

The Triumphant Factory representatives were undoubtedly somewhat frozen.

They had originally prepared to manufacture and sell their own products, assuming these camera factory folks were just exceptionally good at selling cameras and could help move a bit of film on the side.

How did it suddenly turn into sales outsourcing?

Even if they didn't know the word "outsourcing," they were still shocked by a scenario where their sales rights were swallowed up in one fell swoop.

Because a sales cost of three yuan per roll was likely something they could never achieve on their own.

The inefficiency of state-owned enterprises was notoriously low.

Yet the temptation of an annual sales volume of tens of millions of rolls dangled by Rang Weidong was simply too massive.

This agreement merely required them to allow a retail price of twelve yuan per roll while not forbidding the factory from selling on its own.

After a brief internal deliberation, they made the executive decision and agreed.

The newspaper office was naturally delighted, viewing it as having "facilitated" such a major collaborative business achievement.

If domestic color film could truly sell in the tens of millions, leaving aside how much market share it would wrest from imported film, it would at least capture more than half the market, giving them a sturdy backbone.

They could write a glowing feature story in the newspaper about domestic self-reliance.

They had already been brewing content about self-reliance in sanitary napkins, but that subject matter was a bit too delicate—hard to articulate gracefully. Film, however, was an absolute bulls-eye.

Rang Weidong also demonstrated the caliber of a top-tier domestic "sales juggernaut" on the spot: "Kodak film boxes are yellow, Fuji rolls are green and white, and Konica is blue and white. I suggest Triumphant film uses red—solid red, with yellow lettering. It's eye-catching and holds symbolic meaning."

As he spoke, he picked up a new roll of film in its kraft paper packaging: "For this color-printed box, I suggest matching the standards of Kodak and Fuji. Frankly, when you're producing tens of millions of boxes a year, you really shouldn't skimp on packaging costs. We need to highlight our characteristic of being inexpensive without looking cheap."

True to form, the sales section head took on the role of the dissenter today: "But we have to meticulously calculate production costs. If we switch to color boxes, the factory-gate price won't stay at nine yuan."

Rang Weidong smiled and opened the box: "I'd like to ask the factory to consider and debate whether the plastic cylindrical case on the outside of this film is strictly necessary. If not, please cut it and put those savings directly into making a better box."

Every brand of film at that time included a plastic cylinder inside the cardboard packaging to hold the roll. Rumor had it that this protected the film from deforming during transit and shielded the exposed light-sensitive emulsion from being ruined by light afterward.

However, Rang Weidong remembered that transparent cylinders existed later on, proving that light-blocking wasn't their absolute primary function.

In these years when plastic remained quite expensive, saving on that particular cost could allow the cardboard box to match imported rolls in quality.

The folks from the newspaper office were themselves photography aficionados and enthusiastically joined the discussion.

Pingjing possessed newly imported Heidelberg printing presses, which should be capable of producing that exact packaging box effect.

While reporters indeed had the habit of immediately storing film in plastic cylinders after shooting and marking the time and date on the tubes, ordinary consumers truly had no need for that.

Finishing a roll took days anyway; a sturdy and compact cardboard box provided the exact same light-shielding protection.

Rang Weidong reiterated his core philosophy: "We shouldn't blindly copy foreign standards just because they have advanced technology and abundant raw materials. To them, that plastic cylinder is just an extra layer of casual protection; to us, it represents a massive cost disparity."

The procurement section head felt somewhat displeased at this point: "This is going to disrupt the entire procurement system again..."

Rang Weidong didn't even bother to point out whether there were any shady kickbacks hidden within: "I'm merely offering my suggestion. Also, let's not clutter this film canister with too many flashy gimmicks—just keep it red with the yellow characters for 'Triumphant' (Kaixuan). It gives it spirit!"

The factory director finally slammed his fist down: "Fine, we'll follow Weidong's advice!"

The flustered procurement section head grumbled: "If the printing for these packaging boxes is brought to Pingjing, what are the local factories in the city supposed to do? Are they just going to have to follow the provincial lead and switch to making paper tubes?!"

Hearing those three words, Rang Weidong suddenly froze in place: "Paper tubes?"

That sanitary napkin machine he bought—wasn't it originally thought to be a paper-tube machine? Was Northern Ji actually manufacturing those already?

At that exact moment, Rang Weidong felt a chilling shudder of a near-miss.