What? Giving Away a $188 Women's Nightgown for Free Earned Over 70 Million?

【 Ever imagined that giving away a $188 women's nightgown for free could earn over 70 million? 】

What? Give away a women's nightgown for free? You'd be lucky just to break even — and you still expect to make a fortune?

Are you only picturing the costs — manufacturing, logistics, advertising — while struggling to see where any revenue could possibly come from? Put simply, even with substantial capital and a large team behind you, the odds of pulling this off look like zero. Yet here's the truth: this is a genuine business marvel that actually happened. The brand behind it worked with only a handful of partners, and what made it so remarkable was a single stroke of creative thinking — a tiny investment that, in the end, earned over 70 million!

Let's crunch the numbers together

The nightgown originally retails in stores for $188. Now it's given away for free — the customer only pays $23 in shipping. Naturally irresistible! ・Online-only, with no physical store overhead => as everyone knows, the nightgown can cost as little as $8 to make ・Online partners (sales channels) take a commission, earning a $3 rebate per unit sold ・A courier company handles delivery at $10 per unit — but thanks to the sheer volume, that drops to $5

Every unit sold nets $7. Because of this gimmick — and by narrowing the offer to just two styles, off-the-shoulder and spaghetti-strap, which streamlined the ordering process — plus distribution through an affiliate network, sales quickly reached 10 million units, ultimately earning 70 million RMB!

Look closer: the manufacturing factory earns $1 per unit, the courier company earns $1 per unit, and the online partners — who essentially spend nothing on advertising — earn about $3.

But this nightgown company didn't need to manufacture anything themselves, didn't need to handle delivery themselves, and didn't need to advertise. They simply made this one business decision and pocketed $70 million — and here's the real kicker: the entire company had just 4 people!

This shows just how crucial strategy is. It shares the same underlying brilliance as the approach covered in the previous piece, <Shear the sheep on the pig's back> — the money isn't made from the core business at all!