Not everyone who dabbles in business becomes successful.
But technically speaking, what is the difference between those who succeed and those who don't? It's actually quite simple.
They lack preparation!
Before you enter business, you need to clear various steps—things like market study, supply and demand, competitors, alternatives, budget allocation, projected income, and so on.
As such, just because you have a business idea doesn't mean it will work 100% of the time.
Beyond those, and before anything else, you also need three solid foundations: a viable product or service, a clear understanding of your customers, and a brand or identity that connects with them.
Axel had already done most of those beforehand.
His target market was straightforward—the rich witches!
He had been selling Voodoo Dolls the entire time, but only one person had managed to buy everything he posted until now.
In short, right now, other "witches" who were too slow to purchase his items should be sticking to their screens and waiting for more items to appear.
But of course, Voodoo Dolls aren't the only product he's eyeing right now.
Rather, there was a different consumable that's on par, if not better, than the Voodoo Dolls he was planning on crafting and selling—something that is almost always out of stock, has a high demand, and a limited supply.
Something that wasn't for "practicing" but rather for practical "protection."
The Substitute Doll!
It was an item that took on the curses aimed at the user, saving them from harm. However, the dolls themselves were a sort of consumable, since receiving curses wore down the materials of the dolls. And when a doll broke, it lost its effectiveness.
Anyway, Axel didn't really care about the minor details. All he needed to know was that witches would literally kill to get their hands on high-quality Substitute Dolls!
After their lunch was over, Axel let the girls have the crossbow to practice with. He even gave them all the bolts he made—hundreds of them.
Without paying them heed, Axel returned to his tent and sat down, concentrating.
"Alright, let's do this...!"
The Voodoo Doll is made with wooden sticks and a piece of cloth. But a Substitute Doll is made of different materials—straw, hemp yarn, and cloth. The purer the material used, the better its quality... and that is exactly what Axel was taking advantage of.
With his inventory, all items that passed through it were "purified" thoroughly. That meant no impurities would remain... theoretically leading to the maximum quality possible.
Of course, he wouldn't really know without trying it out first. As such, he bought the materials one by one—only a small quantity first, just to test.
First, the Voodoo Dolls.
It was something he was already used to making, so nothing went wrong with the entire process. In just moments, he made a batch of 100 of them.
Despite it being listed as 25 Colts for the total material cost, since the piece of cloth used came from dismantling the cheapest shirt on sale, it was practically more expensive. The shirt was worth a thousand Colts, and dismantling it produced 10 cloth scraps, so that meant each cloth scrap was bought for 100 Colts instead of their actual price of 20 Colts!
In short, he was losing 12.5% of the profit from the doll to the material cost!
"It's a big drop, but still bearable..." Axel convinced himself. "Next is the Substitute Doll."
The material cost was mostly the same. He bought straw, listed as animal feed, for 1,000 Colts a ton. Then, he bought hemp directly, which was also at the same price of 1,000 Colts a ton.
Without delay, he crafted hemp yarn out of it, which was done by placing three units of hemp in a horizontal line across the center. Just this was enough to create a ball of hemp yarn roughly 10 meters long.
Finally, he made cloth scraps the same way he made them for the Voodoo Dolls.
"Good..." Axel nodded as he focused on crafting.
Navi had already told him the recipe for it—being the same as the Voodoo Doll, but with different materials. Of course, the little bugger didn't tell him the exact details, so he had to figure it out... though he did have a guess he tried first.
He placed a large bundle of straw in the middle slot, before placing a unit of hemp rope on each side and diagonally below. Then, he placed a cloth scrap on top.
Learning from his past mistakes, with the crossbow bolts per se, he went with generous amounts for each. This way, although it wasted a lot more in one go, it minimized the trial and error for lower counts instead, which would lead to more "wasted material" in the long run.
With the heart of a Buddha, he pressed the craft button, expecting the worst.
"Oh, it succeeded."
But he got pleasantly surprised instead. His guess was right on the mark!
Furthermore, the item description was way beyond what he expected!
"High quality? Level max?!"
Just either of those would make witches drool, but he got both on his doll in one go! "This will definitely sell...!" he shouted, pleasantly surprised.
Now, he had the two items he was planning to sell.
Up next, Axel did the most basic thing he needed to do: edit his Seller Profile to fit his products. This wasn't just to make his items look better with a proper seller detail, but rather to also unlock a certain feature of the shop—the Seller's Auction Slot!
It was an option that could only be unlocked after a seller edited their account details, so all other sellers mostly had this unlocked already. Thus, Axel rushed to have his auction slot too.
After he was done setting his details, with his name in particular set as "Hexel"—a play on his name and the word "Hex," he nodded with satisfaction.
"Alright... setting the price of the Voodoo Dolls at 20% markup... then put the Substitute Doll on a 30-minute auction window with a starting bid of 5,000 Colts... and done!"
With the setup done, Axel sat up and wiped the sweat off his forehead.
Now, all he needed to do was wait until his consistent buyer came to sweep his items.
But little did he know that his casual attempt at profiteering...
Caused a great disturbance in a certain world.