E-Ladies: Navigating the Wired World
Chapter 219: Episode 219: Wouldn’t Bid Without Full Confidence

Chapter 219: Episode 219: Wouldn’t Bid Without Full Confidence

To make it to the Schroeder Crystal Wedding Dress bidding conference in time, Zhou Xueyin dragged Li Jiniang and Wang Simo throughout all of Beijing’s churches.

Although she had considered something like a grassland wedding or a lakeside wedding, after some thought, it seemed that only the sanctity of a church was fitting for the Schroeder brand.

Having scouted several locations, they finally settled on the church in Zhongguancun, not least because it was newly renovated and situated on a pedestrian street, plus the large open space outside the church was sufficient for displaying the exhibits.

The event would likely be quite effective there.

Once the location was chosen, everything else was easier to manage. They simply needed to adapt to the chosen venue, arranging the positions for the displays based on the advantages of the location.

After a week of hard work, they finally submitted their "Create Beautiful Memories, Schroeder Crystal Wedding Dress Live Exhibition" planning proposal before the tender deadline.

Two weeks later, Zhou Xueyin received a notification that her proposal was under review, with an email instructing her to go to headquarters to present her planning in detail.

The Beijing headquarters of Schroeder was located just one building over from where Zhou Xueyin worked, an incredibly fortuitous advantage!

Upon arriving at the conference room of the other company, there were already quite a few people seated for the bidding, among them familiar faces.

After exchanging acknowledging glances, there was no time for small talk as the "chief examiner" entered and announced the official start of the bidding conference.

After a round of drawing lots, Zhou Xueyin picked the very last number... she wondered if the company would still have the patience to listen to her presentation at the end...

Zhou Xueyin had attended several bidding meetings before, and almost everyone who had seriously prepared a proposal had been selected, so she wasn’t too worried about this one.

However, after observing several of the earlier presentations, she started to feel uneasy.

Although using an actual wedding as product promotion had been considered, those were personal weddings and they even hired professional models for demonstrations, which would definitely have a better effect than her own plan which involved many non-professional weddings. Yet, something felt off to her.

The bosses of the competing companies listened with great interest, nodding frequently and engaging in animated discussions, which applied no small amount of pressure on Zhou Xueyin.

However, the PPT color schemes of these people were quite conventional—employing pink or warm bubbly backgrounds—which somewhat clashed with Schroeder’s high-end image.

In contrast, she had used a pale blue with very low saturation. Even though it looked cool-toned, paired with the white wedding dresses it evoked an airy and refreshing feeling, which aligned perfectly with the crystal wedding dress concept. She only hoped the company would like her idea.

Even though each presenter was given only 15 minutes, the session was quite long since there were many attendees. Two hours had passed, and it still wasn’t Zhou Xueyin’s turn.

"Let’s take a 15-minute break..." announced the host, and then escorted the leaders out of the office.

They didn’t seem very satisfied with the proposals presented so far, which meant there was still hope for her!

Zhou Xueyin went to the break room and unintentionally overheard employees muttering: "I don’t know what the company is thinking, opening all these stores and not renting out a single wedding dress. With such high prices, who would rent?"

"Exactly, just take some nice pictures, look pretty, and that’s it. Those who really want to buy a wedding dress will definitely customize it online. With the money you spend renting here, you can almost buy one—only a fool would rent..."

’Is it really appropriate for you to slander the company like this?’ Zhou Xueyin fumed internally while filling her cup with water.

However, their conversation gave her a lot of insights. She had indeed noticed some irrational aspects of their pricing during her research; not only were photography packages expensive, but nothing was offered complimentary, and there were various hidden expenses included.

People came here for wedding photos because they were attracted by the big brand and the quality manufacturing, but the exorbitant prices made many hesitate and ultimately back out. There were always more people gathering information than actually taking photos.

If her proposal plan could help solve this problem, perhaps she could win this bid?

With that in mind, Zhou Xueyin hurried back to her office and started modifying her proposal on her laptop...

After another hour, it was finally Zhou Xueyin’s turn to present: "Good morning, respected leaders, today my proposal is titled: ’Creating Beautiful Memories’..."

Without mentioning anything else, just the light blue theme alone made the judges, who were tired and sick of the pink bubble themes, sit up and take notice. Their casual demeanor turned into one of serious anticipation.

Seeing their change in attitude, Zhou Xueyin felt an instant boost of confidence and spoke with even greater passion.

Unlike others who started off by directly talking about how to plan a wedding, Zhou Xueyin took a different approach by throwing out a concept of a high-end wedding package customization. Starting with the proposal planning, she laid out step by step how to showcase Schroeder’s products, then moving on to customizing the attire, shooting wedding photos, and arranging the wedding event itself...

And Xueshan Jiying could provide this entire set of promotional processes as a prelude to a church wedding, with integrated online and offline promotions, to display Schroeder’s products to net users and customers one by one.

Since there were foreign staff present, Zhou Xueyin provided a detailed explanation in English for the key parts of her presentation.

"Above all, this is Xueshan Jiying’s promotional proposal for the entire Schroeder Crystal Wedding Dress... Thank you for listening..." After presenting her PowerPoint, Zhou Xueyin bowed deeply.

"Good... very good!" The main person in charge of the Beijing District couldn’t help but start applauding.

Following his lead, the whole room also joined in applauding.

Although some who came for the bidding were reluctant, they showed resigned expressions and clapped along.

"This bidding conference is now concluded, and the results will be announced in a week. Thank you all for coming, everyone has worked hard!" The host of the bidding conference said, arranging for everyone to leave.

Zhou Xueyin, feeling like she had exhausted all her energy, listlessly joined the crowd onto the elevator, completely unaware that the foreign representative from Schroeder was gesturing and whispering about her.

Back at the company, Zhou Xueyin wished she could just collapse into sleep; her mind was completely switched off. At this time, please don’t ask her any questions, she would definitely give nonsensical answers.

"Yinyin, how did it go? Today was alright, wasn’t it?" But Li Jixiang couldn’t hold back and rushed over to inquire about the results.

"Ah? What was alright?" At this moment, Zhou Xueyin had completely lost her ability to think, her brain was truly blank.

"The bidding conference! How did it go?" Li Jixiang asked anxiously.

"It was okay... Anyway, our PowerPoint was very unique, thanks to Shanbao’s design!" Zhou Xueyin smiled at Yao Shanshan, "Jixiang, let’s talk tomorrow... I must get some sleep. I’m so stressed these days, I’ve been dreaming about creating and discussing proposals, I really can’t take it anymore... Ah ha..."

Zhou Xueyin yawned and crawled onto the desk...

"Old Li, call Xiaojing to take Yinyin home to get some sleep..." Li Jixiang instructed Li Ranxu and Wei Jingzhu to take Zhou Xueyin home to sleep.