{"id":158,"date":"2015-12-17T14:38:51","date_gmt":"2015-12-17T19:38:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lisa.rushworth.us\/?p=158"},"modified":"2015-12-17T14:39:12","modified_gmt":"2015-12-17T19:39:12","slug":"middlemen-or-lack-thereof","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/?p=158","title":{"rendered":"Middlemen, or lack thereof"},"content":{"rendered":"

How the Internet has changed business constantly amazes me. I made a cape for Anya over the summer, and we didn’t want something tied<\/em> around her neck … so I wanted to use a magnet to hold the cape closed. It gets caught in something and the cape breaks free. A single pair of magnets, at the site where I was purchasing the fabric, was 7$. I’m sure they are *REALLY* nice magnets (or, rather, at 7$ for two maybe 1″ diameter magnets they better<\/em><\/strong> be really nice magnets), but that price seemed somewhat outlandish.<\/p>\n

Enter the Google search for magnet closures (most of which seem to be for purses and have a snap in the centre of them). I happened across Alibaba — where the exact same thing could be had for 2\u00a2 per piece. With a minimum order of 1,000 units. And, yeah, 20$ is a lot more than 7$ … and I wasn’t actually sure if it was 1,000 pairs<\/em> of magnets or not. But even if I only got 500 pair for 20$ … that’s 4\u00a2 a pair for something retailing for 7$. I could sell half of them on eBay or something, have a lifetime supply of magnetic button closures, and probably have paid less than 7$. Except — I don’t really have any idea how to ship something out of China. A lot of listings on Alibaba (probably because it is more geared toward B2B transactions) require you to sort out the shipping from whatever foreign port.<\/p>\n

I wasn’t willing to put the effort into figuring it out — although it looks like being an importer with an online store could be a fairly lucrative endeavor. In poking around the Alibaba site, though, I found AliExpress<\/a> … same companies offering the same products at a slightly higher price, but in smaller quantities and with someone else sorting the shipping. Ten pairs of magnet buttons for 3.55$ Buying something posted from China means you cannot be in a hurry — estimated delivery is 4-6 weeks out … but jewelry findings (especially clasps) are a quarter the cost, sewing bits, housewares (I got some of the plastic cutters to make ‘animal crackers’ for a tenth the price @ Williams Sonoma).<\/p>\n

Maybe I’m not getting the exact same thing — since the 7$ magnet says it is made in China anyway … that’s debatable — but buying something you don’t need for a few months sure saves a lot of money. I can see why Alibaba — basically a broker that connects manufacturers with retailers and end customers — makes so much money Yahoo wants to divest their money losing search engine \/ e-mail business and just ‘live’ off of their investment in Alibaba.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How the Internet has changed business constantly amazes me. I made a cape for Anya over the summer, and we didn’t want something tied around her neck … so I wanted to use a magnet to hold the cape closed. It gets caught in something and the cape breaks free. A single pair of magnets, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[24],"class_list":["post-158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous","tag-random"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=158"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":160,"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions\/160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}