Don't lose site of the human tragedy in Asia
Jerry Epperson -- Furniture Today, January 23, 2005
It is impossible not to be shocked by the recent tsunami in the Indian Ocean with its cost of at least 163,000 lives and billions of dollars in damages. Furniture people had to be especially concerned when Thailand and Indonesia were mentioned.
Cold, uncaring business types already have complained that shipments of aid to the affected areas will test an already strained ports system. Ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, record shipments from Asia, new security regulations and related delays, and much higher petroleum and other energy costs have made shipping more complex, expensive and time consuming.
Just before the tsunami, there was an article in one of the business publications on how the majority of the non-grocery, non-pharmacy merchandise in mass merchants like Wal-Mart now comes from Asia, with most from China. That's no surprise. We suspect the same is true these days for home centers, electronics stores, office superstores and many other retailers.
What if the tsunami had been on the eastern side of Indonesia, in the Pacific? It would have affected more major trading ports, more shipping, factories, people and countries, including possibly the coast of North America. The tragedy would be beyond comprehension in both a personal and economic sense.
Unfortunately, Americans have a tendency to think about all global events in terms of how it affect me. Sure, there will be problems, but since I live inland hundreds of miles, I'm OK, right? But, in the most American conspicuous-consumption way, the thought of Wal-Marts with empty shelves — no new high-definition TVs, DVDs, i-Pods, laptop computers, fashion accessories, toys, etc. — is as frightening as anything most Americans could imagine.
Shopping for "stuff" is our most popular pastime, and for us not to have an infinite array of things to spend money on, whether necessary or extremely unnecessary, is not only unthinkable, it's un-American.
We hope the furniture industry and others appreciate that today all parts of our globe are truly interdependent, and there is no more us versus them. The globalization of the furniture industry, in parallel with new, non-traditional retailers finding furniture to be a healthy product category, is inevitable. What's happening to us has happened to almost every consumer product category already, so let's recognize that we need to be successful marketers, not just manufacturers or retailers, in order to succeed in the modern marketplace. The past has passed. This is 2005.
Our best wishes and prayers go out to the families so terribly affected by this recent tragedy.
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