Sometimes I wonder if the complete failure of certain supply chains isn’t for the better.
Recently the Chinese ministry of commerce announced that 922 toy exporters in Guangdong province closed shop in 2008, out of the 3,089 toy exporters in 2007. While there are many reasons for this (India recently imposed 6 month ban of Chinese toys come to mind); let me offer this particular anecdote.
My 10 month old daughter received an electronic toy penguin from a friend of the family a few days ago. It has a couple of buttons on its stomach which when pressed causes some lights to flash as it plays a random melody. All in all; it’s a pretty average example of what can be found in any Toys’R’Us across the globe. Of course, it was manufactured in China. Now to the peculiarities:
- It can’t be turned off. To paraphrase a well known tag phrase; it’s a gift that keeps giving (parents a headache).
- And so far, the most frequent of the random melodies played is “Take me out to the ball park”. And let’s just clarify one thing; it’s a traditional toy penguin, bearing none of the trademarks of the Pittsburg-based baseball team.
So here I am; with an electronic toy that can’t be turned off, which plays “Take me out to the ball park” if anything moves in its vicinity. And this profanity (for lack of better description) is sold in Sweden – a country with little more than 800 registered baseball players – so the potential target audience who might enjoy a penguin which can play “Take me out to the ball park” is limited, to say the least.
Yet someone, somewhere, has made a business decision that there is probably a market for this toy and set about to source a supplier who can produce it; a distributor who can distribute it; and organized a sales force to bring it to the public.
With the toy in hand; the whole set up seems like a really stupid idea to me; unfortunately I doubt that this sentiment is shared among the workers that now struggle to find work in the affected regions.
