Idea 464 of 500. Cluster 24: Proof and trust, as a business
Consumer testing of products against their claims, from cinnamon grade to solar-panel output
The mechanism, from the book
The one thing. A country where people do not expect the rules to hold cannot build anything else, and proof can be manufactured by private people, one published record at a time.
Every idea in cluster 24 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Buy three packets of cinnamon labelled with a top grade from three shops, photograph the labels and the receipts, and ask a testing laboratory what it would charge to check each against its claim. Publish whatever the test shows. Then ask two exporters whether they would pay to have their own products tested and marked. The proof is one paid test.
- Who pays first
- An honest exporter who loses sales to cheaper mislabelled goods, and pays for an independent test because it proves the difference to buyers.
- What leaves today
- True cinnamon sells cheap when buyers cannot tell it from imitations; an independent test is the proof that lets the grade command its price.
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. SixThe Fridge by the Road
The fridge by the road: proof that the rules hold - Ch. FifteenThe Odds
13 of 101 countries made it, and what Singapore's prosecution cost
More from cluster 24
- 451A verified-review platform for Sri Lankan businesses where the reviewer is real and the review cannot be bought
- 452Escrow services for transactions between strangers, so that the money moves when the goods do
- 453Published price lists at the tourist sites and in the taxis, with a complaints line that answers
- 454A landlord and tenant rating service, since neither can currently check the other
- 455Contractor registries with completed jobs photographed and clients named
- 456Independent building inspection, so that a buyer abroad knows what was actually built
Idea 464 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.