Chapter 553 - 342: Online Shopping is Addictive (Part 2)

"They're so pretty!" Galina answered.

The room was filled to the brim with packages, and the two of them spent the entire afternoon opening them.

Most of it was stuff that seemed like it might be useful, but was actually pretty useless.

Pretty junk.

That was Uffie's assessment of the things Galina had bought.

"You spent your whole allowance on this stuff?"

"To be precise, it was a little more than my allowance. I also used my credit card."

Uffie was speechless.

'What was that concept Zog talked about before? A consumerism trap.'

It's when you tie spending to your self-worth, happiness, or even freedom, trapping you in a vicious cycle: buy, feel a moment of joy, feel empty, buy again.

From the looks of it, Galina hadn't just fallen into the trap.

She'd jumped in willingly and was having the time of her life.

Thankfully, as someone who'd been rich for several generations, Galina had a High Level item like a spatial storage Magic Item. Otherwise, there would be no room in their dorm for all this "junk."

'Sorry, but Uffie really couldn't think of a nicer way to describe the pile of stuff.'

It was just junk.

And it wasn't cheap, either.

Most of what she bought were official, co-branded items, like that box of Hogwarts candles.

Even though it was made of nothing more than fishing line and wax, the price skyrocketed as soon as you slapped a brand collaboration on it.

And the craziest part was, people bought it without a second thought.

The price of nostalgia and faith.

"Phew, finally done." Galina stood with her hands on her hips, looking very accomplished.

Uffie thought this spending habit was a bad idea, but she didn't have any grounds to criticize it.

After all, Galina came from a proper, wealthy noble family. In theory, it was a good thing for people like her to spend extravagantly.

Just then, Galina's phone rang.

"Ha, that must be another package arriving."

Zog's delivery service was indeed door-to-door, but the Repin dorms didn't allow unauthorized personnel to come and go as they pleased. So, there was a designated area outside for packages, and you had to go pick them up yourself.

Galina happily answered the call, but her expression visibly crumbled. Her face grew more and more crestfallen until, by the time she lowered the phone, she looked like an empty, will-less shell.

"What's wrong? Did a package get lost?" That was the only thing Uffie could think of that would make Galina fall apart like this.

"No, it was my dad."

As Galina dejectedly uttered those first few words, Uffie had already braced for the worst and started mentally drafting a comforting speech.

"He said he's cutting my allowance in half. My credit card has some kind of guardian feature, and he found out I was splurging."

"Er..."

'So she *does* know she's splurging. And here I was, getting all worked up for nothing.'

'It wasn't even that big a deal.' Uffie recalled this wasn't the first time Galina's allowance had been cut.

The last time, she thought, was for chasing after some celebrity.

Even if Galina's allowance was cut in half, and then in half again, she'd still be among the upper echelon at Repin.

It was a figure Uffie couldn't have even dreamed of before she started working for the Zog Group.

For Galina, however, this was a world-ending catastrophe.

"Then how am I going to pay off my card next month!"

"Didn't you say you only charged a little to your credit card?"

Galina looked at Uffie with tear-filled eyes, then, with practiced ease, latched onto her thigh. "Mommy!"

Clearly, Galina was about to ask for a loan.

Lending her some money was no big deal for Uffie, who was now a little rich lady in her own right. She wasn't worried about Galina paying her back, either. But just then, her own phone rang.

Uffie pulled out her phone. "It's your dad."

After she answered on speakerphone, Galina's father exchanged a few pleasantries with her.

Uffie was, after all, the model child every parent dreamed of.

With the small talk over, Galina's father got to the point. "Uffie, if Galina asks you for money anytime soon, please don't lend her any. We need to get this splurging habit of hers under control. She needs to learn things the hard way."

Experience is the best teacher, as they say. A couple of months of being broke, and she'll learn that money doesn't grow on trees.

Galina gave Uffie a pitiful look, mouthing the words, 'You're not actually going to agree, are you?'

"Of course, I understand."

The call ended. Uffie looked at Galina, who was staring at her expectantly, and replied, "I promised your dad I wouldn't. I can't lend you any money."

"Please don't."

Galina pleaded, but Uffie wouldn't budge.

Finally, seeing that Uffie had made up her mind, Galina stood up as if she had just made a monumental decision.

"I'm going to earn my own money! I'm going to be an entrepreneur!"

"Er, you don't have to start a business to make money. It'd be easier to just get a part-time job," Uffie suggested.

'Starting a business? It wasn't that she didn't trust Galina, but that sounded even worse than her splurging.'

Uffie didn't want to see her best friend lose her shirt.

"I'm going to open my own online shop," Galina said, resolute.

'Well, that's a relief.'

Uffie breathed a sigh of relief.

'You can't lose too much money with an online shop.'

"Then what are you going to sell?"

"The stuff I just bought, of course."

"But, how are you going to compete with the stores that specialize in selling these things?"

"I'll sell it cheaper than them!"

Uffie's eyes went wide. She was so stunned by this answer that she was speechless for a few moments, struggling to form a coherent thought.

"But wouldn't you lose money on every single sale?"

"I'll take a loss, sure, but I'm not trying to make a profit. I just want to recoup a little of the money I splurged."

Zog's e-commerce platform didn't have a "no-questions-asked" return policy with free return shipping.

Delivery capacity was already strained—there were only so many Dragons, after all.

It also effectively stopped people who had a habit of buying ten items and returning nine, which offered some protection to the sellers.

Of course, if a product was genuinely defective, you could still return it for free. If the issue was serious enough, you could even demand compensation.

You couldn't just protect the sellers, after all.

Galina might have had many flaws, but laziness wasn't one of them.

Once she set a goal, she was a woman of action.

Otherwise, she never would have become Raul's top fan. Being a core organizer in a fan community required more than just passion and money; it was physically demanding work.

Soon enough, Galina's little second-hand shop was up and running.

It was probably the shop with the widest variety of product categories on the entire platform, aside from the official Zog store.

Furthermore, every item was limited in quantity, with the highest stock for any single item being five.

To get the shop ready, Galina meticulously took stock of everything she could sell.

She hadn't realized just how much stuff she had bought until she started counting.

She had no memory of many of the things she found in her storage space. They looked completely unfamiliar, and she couldn't recall why she'd ever bought them.

It just went to show that consumerism was often about losing your head in a momentary rush. If she had just taken a few more seconds to think, she never would have placed the order.

After deciding to open the shop, Galina threw herself into it.

She carefully crafted a promotional slogan for every single item.

"Personally used by a female college student, like new."

"Gift from my boyfriend. Don't really need it. Unopened."

"Rich girl's moving sale."

"Unused prize from a company raffle."

"Free small gift with every order."

...

Perhaps thanks to her incredible social aptitude, coming up with these taglines was second nature to Galina.

She'd wasted years of her talent studying Magic; she had far more of these marketing tricks up her sleeve than actual Magic.

The vast majority of consumers love a good bargain.

Thanks to Galina's low-price offensive, her little shop racked up a lot of sales.

All the things she'd bought but barely used were sold off for less than what she'd paid.

And both the buyers and the seller were happy.

The buyers saved money, and the seller was happy just for the sake of it.

Galina suddenly discovered that earning money actually felt pretty good, even if she was just recouping money she had originally wasted—and at a significant loss.

Having found a new purpose in life, her spirits lifted and her daily routine became much healthier.

She spent all her free time staring at her shop's admin messages.

"Seriously, what is wrong with this person? He left a bad review because the item was opened. Is he blind? Didn't I write 'like new' on the product page!"

Galina slammed her hand on the desk and cursed.

"Uffie, tell me, is a customer like this ever right?"

"Er, maybe he just assumed everything on the platform was new. No one's ever sold used stuff on here before."

"Yeah, no one does sell used stuff... Actually, there are probably a lot of people who need a way to sell their unwanted things."

"I guess so."

"I guess so..."

Galina suddenly thought of something.

"There *are* a lot of people who need this!" she exclaimed, suddenly excited. "There's a real need for a platform like that—one dedicated to selling second-hand goods."

Galina looked at Uffie, her expression serious. "Let's build a website for selling second-hand stuff."