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Interesting article. On discussing buying clothes sight unseen the article mentioned: It’s only once a bale has been opened that the quality of the clothi

Interesting article. On discussing buying clothes sight unseen the article mentioned: It’s only once a bale has been opened that the quality of the clothing is discovered. If it’s in good condition, profits can tally quickly to as much as $14,000. But if the clothes are torn or stained, or long out of fashion, their importer may as well have put a torch to their money. I find it interesting that the clothes they want and will pay money for fits the description of what clothes people in developed nations want too. Human nature is quite the same no matter where you go. Id be curious to know what other factors impact price/demand. Eg. Brands, materials, styles/designs, etc.

thaumasiotes 5y ago
I find the general concept of a business model where you buy unknown items and hope they end up covering your costs pretty interesting. I think jade works in a very similar way - the mine produces boulders of unknown quality, and middlemen buy them on the theory that there's probably good jade in some of them.
- xadhominemx 5y ago
  > general concept of a business model where you buy unknown items and hope they end up covering your costs Seed stage VC?
- greedo 5y ago
  It's like the shows where people bid on abandoned storage units.
- toast0 5y ago
  It's delegation or specialization, more or less. The people in the mine don't have time or space or desire to process the boulders, but they can source them. Etc. Vertical integration would increase the amount of total margin accruing to any one business, but at the cost of turning a focused business into a sprawling one, and increasing the time and risk between aquiring the materials and selling them.
danparsonson 5y ago
> Human nature is quite the same no matter where you go. This shouldn't come as a surprise though - people in developing countries are still people, and although they may have a lower standard of living by some index, that doesn't mean they're desperate or don't care about their appearance.

thaumasiotes 5y ago

I find the general concept of a business model where you buy unknown items and hope they end up covering your costs pretty interesting. I think jade works in a very similar way - the mine produces boulders of unknown quality, and middlemen buy them on the theory that there's probably good jade in some of them.

xadhominemx 5y ago
> general concept of a business model where you buy unknown items and hope they end up covering your costs Seed stage VC?
greedo 5y ago
It's like the shows where people bid on abandoned storage units.
toast0 5y ago
It's delegation or specialization, more or less. The people in the mine don't have time or space or desire to process the boulders, but they can source them. Etc. Vertical integration would increase the amount of total margin accruing to any one business, but at the cost of turning a focused business into a sprawling one, and increasing the time and risk between aquiring the materials and selling them.

danparsonson 5y ago

> Human nature is quite the same no matter where you go. This shouldn't come as a surprise though - people in developing countries are still people, and although they may have a lower standard of living by some index, that doesn't mean they're desperate or don't care about their appearance.