Starter Kit. Idea 363 of 500. Cluster 18
Sri Lanka House in London, Melbourne and Toronto: a shop, a café and a desk, the Colombo model abroad
The mechanism, from the book
1.5 million people abroad who know how rich countries work, and who send home money and little else.
The first step
Take a table at one Sri Lankan community event in London, Melbourne or Toronto with tea, spices and a few products from small makers at home, priced and labelled, plus a sign-up sheet for a regular stall. Note what sells out, what nobody touches and who asks about a desk for business. A sold-out table and a list of regulars is the case for a shop.
- Who pays first
- A Sri Lankan family abroad who wants tea, spices and gifts from home in one trusted place rather than an unlabelled shelf in a general grocery.
- What leaves today
- Sri Lankan goods reach cities abroad unbranded through other traders; a Sri Lanka House keeps the margin and the name with the makers.
Ask first
- Sri Lanka Export Development Board. Ask which small exporters are ready to supply a shop abroad.
- Sri Lanka Customs. Ask what export paperwork small consignments of food and goods need.
Check before you spend
The food and labelling rules in the country where you sell, import duties there, and permission to trade at the community event or stall.
Find out these three numbers
- Which products sold out at the table?
- How many people signed up for a regular stall?
- What would a small shop cost in that city each month?
A comparison from the book
Sri Lanka House, Colombo. Chapter Seventeen
"I have been calling it Sri Lanka House."
Start with the Colombo model in miniature: showcase, story and reorder, then grow the stall into a shop.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.