George and Fred realized Loren was right. They'd been spooked by the mob of fired-up girls and forgot they had the machine, so their first instinct had been to run to Loren for help.
Now that they'd calmed down, they remembered they were past the hand-crafting era: with Loren's help they'd industrialized production, capable of turning out over ten thousand rings a day for later enchanting. The British wizarding world only had around ten thousand witches and wizards; even if they did the enchantments by hand, a week's output would be enough to satisfy everyone.
That thought eased their panic—but there was still a problem for Loren to solve: raw materials were running out. The last batch had been funded by Loren; they'd thought a hundred or two would cover all of Hogwarts, since not every student liked prank gear. The Beauty Ring's sudden explosion in popularity had taken them completely by surprise. Even if they ordered by owl now, the stock wouldn't arrive until tomorrow—far too late.
Once he understood, Loren drew a pouch from his robe and began pouring out materials. In moments, a heap big enough for several hundred rings lay on the floor—but he didn't stop, still dumping more.
"Enough, enough! That's plenty!" Fred yelped.
Loren kept pouring. "Is your vision really that short? How are you going to make money like that?"
At the word money, the twins' brains clicked. George's eyes lit up. "Right—loving beauty is human nature. A ring that makes people better-looking is something almost everyone will want. It's practically a daily necessity now. We only make about one Galleon per three rings—maybe that's too cheap. Should we raise the price?"
"Raise it, absolutely," Fred chimed in. "If every student buys, we clear just over a hundred Galleons here at school. Across the British wizarding world we'd only make a bit over a thousand. If we double the price, people will still buy, and our profit at least triples. Split it with you fifty-fifty and we still take in over a thousand Galleons."
A thousand Galleons—an unimaginable fortune to them—sent them drifting into daydreams.
Loren had to cut in. "Britain's wizarding community is only a few thousand—ten thousand at most—but worldwide there are over two hundred thousand wizards. Don't you want that money?"
Gold practically sparkled in their eyes.
"Then," Loren said, voice silky, "we build in planned obsolescence."
The phrase knocked them speechless. They'd never heard it. "Planned… what?"
"It means we set a service life for our product. When time's up, it stops working. If they want to keep using it, they buy a new one."
The twins looked at one another, still lost. Magical items—aside from consumables—were usually very durable.
Loren clicked his tongue. "Our machine can produce over ten thousand a day, and run twenty-four hours. In a month we could give every wizard on the planet one ring. If we don't plan for obsolescence, how will we keep earning—make one sale and we're done?"
George frowned. "But magical items are known for durability. If we openly design a time limit, people will complain."
"Who said we tell them?" Loren said. "We say this: to make sure every wizard can afford our product, we're pricing it low—nine Sickles for a ring that makes you better-looking instantly. Not cheap enough? But because we're keeping the price down, the materials aren't the finest, so after a period they wear, the effect weakens, and eventually fails."
Now they got it. One penny, one penny's worth—at nine Sickles, anyone would accept that.
Fred added, "We can run a program: bring in a failed ring when you buy a new one and get one Sickle off. We can recycle the materials and cut costs by at least half."
Loren gave him a thumbs-up. "Good. One more issue—we've already sold a bunch. What do we do about those?"
George grimaced. They hadn't built any obsolescence into the first batch. If they didn't handle it, trouble was coming.
"Simple," Loren said. Having survived more than a few shady Muggle merchants in a past life, he had fixes on the tip of his tongue. "Redesign the look. The old rings were made as prank gear—plain by design. Now we're treating them as must-have accessories, so make them pretty. New colors, decorative lines—rebrand them if you like.
"Tomorrow, announce an upgraded model. Apologize to those who bought yesterday: to make it right, anyone with yesterday's receipt or the old ring can swap for the upgraded version. And record every single swap. Some folks won't care about the look and won't come—go to them and exchange it at their door. Be genuinely apologetic; make it hard to refuse. That builds your name and gets every old ring back."
The twins stared at him, awestruck. No one in the wizarding world did business like this; even in the more advanced Muggle markets, it was textbook strategy.
George recovered first with a new worry. "But how do we design a good-looking ring? Fred and I have no taste."
Loren rubbed his forehead. "Good-looking is relative. The old ring was a blank. Add color. Add some trim lines. Slap a few tasteful magical motifs on it. It'll look better than the blank, and that's enough."
They nodded—got it.
"Make the current design your base model," Loren continued. "Keep it at nine Sickles. When the holidays come, I'll get you a pile of Muggle jewelry. Learn how Muggles design good-looking rings. Even if you can't design, copy. The wizarding world barely cares about Muggle jewelry trends. Those designs can sell at high prices—charge as much as you can. Pure-blood families won't want the same base model as everyone else. Every year, copy a few new styles and tell the pure-bloods they're the latest fashion. If they're still wearing last year's style, people will say the family's fallen on hard times."
The twins' eyes shone again, as if they could already see pure-bloods jostling to pay.
Loren let the "pure" boys dream, pulled out paper and pen, and quickly drafted fresh documents. He tossed the packet at them. "Here. Do exactly this. Don't worry about my cut yet. I'll talk to Gringotts and set up a shop in Diagon Alley. We'll sell Beauty Rings there—and the prank gear you two invent in the future."
They snatched up the papers, stuffed them away, and sprinted back to their secret base.
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