For twenty years I exported furniture and accessories to the USA for restaurant and resort projects that my firm designed all over the USA. I designed and purchased the furniture from factories and bought many, many of the accessories directly from artisans who have now been identified as "Great Masters" of Mexican folkart (and they are). So, when I now take people to these same factories and they don't know any better then to think those furnishings are expensive, I am amazed. They have no idea the mark-up if they were to buy those things at a store in the USA or even in San Miguel. The typical markup is 10 times - yes, that's right, 10 times in the USA!
This was brought home to me today while surfing on the web when I came across the Neiman Marcus and Horchow catalog on-line. Neiman's is having a "sale" of home furnishings and the same green ceramic pineapples that I buy in the State of Michoacan for $50US are "on sale" at Neiman's for $543.00US, down from $775.00US. Yikes, aren't I lucky to be able to "go to the source"? You can go to www.neimanmarcus.com/store/catalog/ if you're interested.
By the way, when I was exporting for my projects we only marked up 2 times to cover shipping and brokerage fees.
No comments:
Post a Comment