Frances Moore Lappe argues that we should manufacture locally, shop locally as it improves the economy right around us. Give your dollars to the shoe maker at your corner store, or the shoe fixer guy. That dollar stays in your area. Why buy shoes from Walmart which then in turn exports dollars in a gush to CHINA? (Although workers get a pittance from them.)
SO when we enter into the INTERNATIONAL IMPORT/ EXPORT business, Why not start by TRADING locally. Manufacture shoes that you sell to stores in your town. Manufacture something that will sell well as everyone really needs it, even in a Depression.
Investigate what LAPPE refers to when she says local by googling key words like "small is beautiful.' "locally manufactured".
And after all, it's cheaper. What American can buy all his clothes, furniture, food IMPORTED from France or Germany or even Sweden, now while the American ECONOMY has such limits? Our dollar has lessened value lately, which is why GASOLINE appears to double in price. It's that the dollar has shrunk. Compared to Arabia and Europe. Many economists even say that that the dollar HAS TANKED!
Consumers may even buy local produce, objects, furniture, cars, tvs as they are cheapest. Buying local products enriches local people, it puts bread on local tables which come back to you. In a tanked economy, you need to have a line of merchandise up and running that is utilitarian, very required, that must be rebought frequently. Shoes are a good example. You can't go broke manufacturing shoes.
I learned this years ago when I manufactured four poster beds in India. They were mahogany, carved, twirly posts with finials, all carved and sumptuous. I put them in my friends WEST HOLLYWOOD chic store, and they sat there for months without a single order. Cuz who needs a bed but once a lifetime? The shop owner taught me that what people needed all the time was chairs, desks, bedside tables I still have those beds, 40 years later.
Today, as the dollar is cheap and we are Europe's Tijuana, I would seek to manufacture something that would be costly in Europe and very highly esteemed. I feel that AMERICAN INDIAN UTILITARIAN OBJECTS, embroidered or dyed or woven or potted with typical, identifiable tribal designs, would bring highest cash in Switzerland, Germany, France, Belgium. Holland. If I were near a tribe, Santa Fe, Denver, Portland, that would be a superb way to make a million.
So create a line of merchandise, well thought out, objects so totally needed that people will buy it at a relatively high price so you can make a profit. Look around you, what are the most utilitarian things that you require, daily?
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Try going without shoes (Be a SANDAL MAKER, leather worker)
Make skirts dresses (be a SEAMSTRESS) We need a lot of these often
Trousers, Jeans, pants - they tend to last! We don't need them so often.
Shirts - (We go thru them fast!
belts, purses (leather worker) though one will last me 20 years
pots to cook in - Me I burn these up fast.
food, grains (FOOD CO-OP) GO thru this fast, need a lot
Lamps (ARTISAN). Rarely buy them.
Furniture - Find it in alleys
hand loomed wool carpets yarn from your own sheep. (IMPORTED CARPETS
are not a recession thing)
sheets/bedspreads (TEXTILE collectors love INDIA/MEXICO)
THE MEXICAN "MANTA" bedspread is hand woven slubby cotton
plaid, in hot pastel lines intersecting to make a PLAID and colors
mutate where lines
intersect, a thing of beauty. If I saw them, I'd buy them.!!!!!
YOU WILL WANT to buy these items in third world at a very low cost.
OR sometimes, PRODUCE them locally in a garage workshop, yourself.
YOu can't weave bedspreads, that's an Indian thing, But you could
import the raw fabric which is sooo cheap in MEXICO. Hem them here,
and you have a knock out product!
If you aspire to world travel, write a PROSPECTUS. One of every three
people you show it to will invest! .....and probably join you on buying
trips!
The careful way to start wholesaling is to manufacture much needed,
utilitarian
items of decor, jewelry, shoes, purses, men's bags and do it in your
garage.
There is no additional start-up costs, or very small ones, when it's
your
factory already!
I know, while we're young, we prefer to travel the world, see
all the exotic
places and that's where great artisanry is produced. But you can do
that after
a year of profiting from a "LOCAL BUSINESS." The THIRD WORLD is
not all that costly even during a planet wide recession. It's
safe if you go in a
team*. I'd go to AFRICA, INDIA,
MEXICO, BALI, INDONESIA TOO,
CHINA and the PHILIPPINES then, as a merchandiser, provide
the treasures you find to the American public at low cost. But I'd
wholesale
to extant elegant shops rather than pay HUGE rent to a landlord for
his STORE
which means thousands of profits go to landlord. No way Jose. Do the
wholesale
bia out of your home. Store in your garage. AND LOCK the GARAGE!
Think of unique designs, which are not produced anywhere in the USA.
High-
Concept! See THE LIGHT YOUR WAY TO SUCCESS LAMP with
bulletin boards on all four faces which is guaranteed to improve the
owneer's life
see it in MERCANTILISM FILE !
http://home.earthlink.net/~loveguru/mercantilism.htm
GARAGE workshops out of RENTED COTTAGES which you share
with your work team make sense. But one set of keys to start with!
eh?
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* SAFETY of third world individual countries
must be checked with
the US. STATE DEPARTMENT ONLINE
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