More Tradeshow Notes--Week 2

It’s telling, the amount of hassle that you get buying a visa or going through various international customs, about the nature of the country that you’re about to deal with.  I really don’t understand the attitudes that I get LEAVING China from various boarder points in Guangdong.Once across the boarder, Hong Kong is a piece of cake.  No visa, one short form, no questions that you have to look up the answer for, short (or at least quick) lines.  Lots of windows/desks.

Thailand, is easy but slow.  No visa necessary but long lines that never end.  Not enough windows/desks, poor design in the new airport, crappy traffic control.  But at least they are nice and they smile.Vietnam is pretty good too.  Fast, no lines, easy form and cheap visas—even for express service.  They seem actually excited that you're coming to visit them.Taiwan seems like it was really great about 20 years ago but hasn’t been improved since.  It’s moldy and cold (even in the newer terminal).  Customs is a pain, visas are both difficult and expensive.Cambodia and Lao are, well...not sure how to catagorize them—My experience with these two customs is just pay for whatever you want and move on through.  Really, I’ve paid for at-the-boarder service in both places.    The Thai embassy in Lao also asked me what  I needed (and how long I wanted to stay in Thailand and Lao before I went back to Thailand) and then gave me just what I asked for. (Obviously helped that I spoke Thai.)For my wife (Chinese) going through the US alone it’s a huge insulting hassle.  When she is with me, no problems.  But when she’s alone, she comes out almost in tears every time.  This pisses me off, big time.  Why should it make any difference if we're together or not.  I've had her take down agents names and talked to superiors before.

But China is just a mess.  I’ve detailed before the randomness of their checks and limitations.  I’ve crossed the boarder about 14 times in the last two weeks (speaking at the show fills up my passport quickly).  And only last night, coming back INTO China at 11pm was the process at all pleasant.Customs must have a new rule to have all agents to really look at all faces very carefully.  What else would explain why they are holding up groups of young foreign students, European businessmen and a group of tourists?  Standing in line I saw agents requesting people take out their earbuds and asking women to pull back their hair.  They asked me when the last time I shaved was (in my passport pic I have a gotee, but don't now).  These are all non-Chinese people that are LEAVING China!  What’s the problem?  Why are they so strict?  I could understand if security was an honest concern, but these are the same boarders that are NOT using their x-ray machines and allowing just about everyone to just walk through (except for Middle-eastern or African looking men with boxes--I feel really sorry for these folks, there is just no chance that they're getting a fair shake in life any more.  Really sad to see the extreme racism all over the world toward these people.).15 years ago, I went to Israel and the middle East for a semester in college.  The boarders there were INSANE.  Crossing back and forth from Egypt to Israel or Jordan took forever and required EVERY item to be x-rayed and the vehicle to be inspected.  All of this was done under armed guard.  But I’m convinced that getting a bus load of college kids with luggage across the Israel/Jordan boarder was faster than getting 50 foreigners out of China during tradeshow month.  And we didn't have to wait at a second boarder check point to get into another part of the "same" country either!Ok, I’m finished complaining.One other issue that you could be of value to you working in China: Shenzhen Notary Public. I've used them before, but forgot about the process until I had to get a POA stamped this week.  The good news is, if you need to get any documents notarized you can do that in SZ (or just about any other big city).  The bad news is, Notary Publics in China are all government agencies.  Its not like the US where you can go to a post office or a law firm or your accountant’s office and get a stamp for $15 or less.  Here you have to pay about $25, have 3-4 copies of every page of the document, sign every page of every copy of every document and fill out an application.  You must provide both the original and a copy of your ID.  And, here’s the kicker—you have to have EVERY PAGE OF THE DOCUMENT TRANSLATED before they'll stamp it.  If you use the Notary’s translation services the current back up is 7-10 days!!!!  If you pay for an approved 3rd party to translate it for you it’ll cost you at least another $50 and you have to wait for them to do it too.So for even a simple one page POA in English you’re paying $75 and waiting at least 24 hours.  They can’t just see your ID and notarize that you indeed signed the document in their presence (which is the point in the first place, right?!).  They have to know what all the documents say—why is it any of their business?!  No notary in the US asks to read documents if you ask for just the notarization of a signature.OK, now I’m really finished complaining.  Honest.SHOW PRESENTATION NOTES:3P’ of Quality from SGS:1.    Product Control—asses the risk.  Voluntary standards, specific requirements and other safety requirements/standards.2.    Process Control—managing the supply chain.3.    People Control—ethical issues, training human involvement.Quality and Cost seem to be the most important drivers for sourcing strategies. (Not sure why I noted that little gem, but there you go!)Schenker on Shipping:Shipping costs from China to the US look to be about 50% of the price of what they were this time last year.  Airfreight too.  To the EU is not such a steep discount.I looks like shipping and foreign buying in China is moving up a bit. But the fear in the market is that it’s not a recovery so much as its just retailers refilling their inventories that they let lag as long as possible.SHOW Q&A NOTES:Some of the Q&A today was, I though enlightening as to the current state of affairs of the global economy.First, The shows are empty.  We have had more people at my individual presentation last week than we did at the group presentation every day except Wednesday.  Attendence is said to be down about 25% off of last fall (which was off about 30% from the spring before!).Second, the majority of people that I talked with are doing enough volume that they can (and should) cut out their domestic distributor.  But what they don’t know when they do this is that all the warranty, customer service on the sales end and all the QC and logistics on the sourcing end are now their responsibility.  There is a reason why everyone doesn’t just go to a show in Asia, buy off the rack sell with huge margins without any problems.  The reason is that it just doesn’t happen (successfully) that often.  You don’t cut out layers of middlemen with no (positive and negative) repercussions.  But the point here really is that small to medium retailers are tired of domestic distributors and are more and more going direct as the economy forces them to make choices.Third, there is still trillions of dollars of business going on—sure the US alone lost a trillion dollars worth of value, but there are still 300 million consumers that have to live.  Unemployment is still lower than 10% too (most countries would kill for single digit unemployment numbers).Fourth, many small businesses that were selling to other mom-and-pop retailers and were not working on credit are still in business.  They were not killed by the credit crisis nor were they affected by the box stores huge lead times.  Smart small businesses were running on cash, still have cash and are still in business.  Many of there are coming to shows here in Southern China this week.Fifth, in case you didn’t know (and apparently many don’t know this) there are multiple shows going on this month, not just one show for one specific industry as some of the buyers we talked to thought.  Starting about 10 days there are show almost every day of the week from Hong Kong to Shenzhen to Guangzhou (and in BKK and other places too).   Smart buyers are hitting multiple shows, getting options from both mainland and Hong Kong venders and realizing that they have both choices and power (since they have money and factories are dying for orders).Sixth, anybody hearing about a black list of foreign buyers being put together by the Chinese government?  There are a TON of factories that are stuck with orders that were cancelled in various stages of completion.  I've not heard about this directly, but someone told me that a list is being collected.  That could be really scary.  Let know if you've heard anything specific.Finally, simple pleasures make life better.  The French Toast at the Harbor Kitchen in the downtown Hong Kong expo center is fantastic!!!  Just like I used to get at JB's (Bob's Big Boy) when I was growing up.  Haven't had toast this thick, battered-up and deep-fried for 25 years.  I loved it!!