Idea 169 of 500. Cluster 7: The infrastructure that makes the rest possible
Sample-shipping services: one box, tracked, to a buyer abroad, at a fixed price
The mechanism, from the book
The tiny business pathway. A rural woman with an exceptional product should not need photography, English copy, packaging design and a distributor before the world can find her.
Every idea in cluster 7 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Get quotes from three couriers for a 2 kg tracked box to Europe, the Gulf and North America, and set one fixed price for each region with your margin included. Offer it to producers who have a buyer asking for samples. Pack and send the first five boxes yourself, sharing the tracking. Producers who come back for a second box are the proof.
- Who pays first
- A small producer whose foreign buyer has asked for samples, and who does not know how to send them safely.
- What leaves today
- Deals die at the sample stage when producers cannot ship a box reliably, and the buyer orders from another country instead.
The idea and the mechanism are from the book. The first step was written for this site as a suggestion; if you know a better one, say so.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
The only test any idea on this site has to pass. The four rules that go with it are here.
In the book
- Ch. SeventeenOne Building
The dozen small things that turn a product into money that stays
More from cluster 7
Idea 169 of the 500 in the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? Every one can be started by one person, one family or one small firm.