Quote: (01-23-2018 07:10 PM)Sisyphus Wrote:
Quote: (01-23-2018 05:07 PM)Dragan Wrote:
A friend of a friend used to fly down to south america biweekly, pick up textiles made by the natives, then fly back to the US, unloading them at high end stores that you find at gallerias that sell eclectic "world" items, at 2 or 3 times over cost.
Interesting. I've been to one of the largest textile market in South America and the stuff there is dirt cheap and could definitely could me marked up and sold as exotic and marketed towards SJW types with deep pockets.
But instead of selling to a store that gets to mark it up even more why not start your own store and then charge even more for the sale? Also why not work out a deal to have the stuff shipped in bulk - the constant flying seems expensive and inefficient in terms of how much you can take with you.
From what i understand, the indigenous people would make these clothes/ items for themselves, and sell them to tourists who came looking for extra cash, so not that many tourists... Anyway, he thought they would sell well at high end stores, so he'd take thousands of dollars in cash, and go to them to buy, and got them to agree to sell just to him--he said he'd buy everything they had ready, every two weeks, cash. He'd go down twice a month to buy the stuff directly from the indians on their land. It was all carried back on the plane, and the textiles were really cheap. I just know he was clearing thousands by selling them to the merchants.
I guess this goes back to a lesson I learned about entrepreneurship: most of the money to be made in business, is a business to business operation. They give you steady income and a loyal customer.
I guess he didn't open up a storefront for himself because he was already profiting handsomely by taking the stuff to these stores that sold "world items", eclectic fashions, and high end knick kacks. He'd just do cold calls, and explain like the backstory to the items, and explain that they were 100 percent authentic. It also helped that at the time, these things weren't being sold in the US... Nevertheless, don't forget the power of a storefront these days, and an item with an interesting backstory, that also looks unique and authentic as hell... Also I'm sure he felt he'd done enough work, having to fly down 2 times a month, and going to the Indians. So he was happy to take his several times profit and just do it part time.
The scheme worked out until a war started and the place was destabilized, or he got married and no longer was able to give up his weekends... I just know he enjoyed partying in whatever country it was and meeting girls. It gave him big social proof being an importer-exporter down there.
Sidegigs like this are really cool, teach you a lot about business real quick, give you some money to play with when you're over there, social proof with local girls (to date) and businessmen that you might want to work with, and make you an expert in something that few people even are aware of. It's the purest form of capitalism, and it's beautiful to me.
I just wonder what the opportunities are, I was thinking of a few things that can be rare in developing places; Nikes, Air Jordans, Ray bans, various American (Nike) sportswear, Аdidas, iphones, macbooks, etc.
I'm kinda reversing the dude's idea, and taking things from an expensive western country to a cheap developing place, but things that people there really want, but are hard to get or expensive. If we talk about American cultural hegemony, it is powerful as hell, but as globalization continues, arbitrage opportunities will decrease substantially. A lot of places still don't even have amazon yet, and if they import through conventional retail, the items are jacked up in price, or pretty hard to find. I think this is because there's too little supply, or the prices are too high for people to afford, that or people are shitty marketers there, and they're not doing a good job marketing the item...
