My sojourn away from blogging for two months during which I entered into the blissful world of married life and moved from one country to another and dully settled down - I am once again back to my good ol' blogging!
Reading about Marketing - my pet subject, always makes me wonder how commonsensical things are!!!
Today's browsing landed me onto the pages of a NY based company called the 'Wearable Collections' . Curious to know more, I read all about the company and what they do. As i mentioned earlier - very commonsensical idea yet implemented and marketed well.
It feels like yesterday - those innumerable number of school and college days spent at Patti's house in west mambalam. Every single daughter of my grandmother would bring their old sari's and to-be thrown shirts to patti's house. I used to wonder why they took the trouble of bringing it all the way to Patti's house if they intend to just throw it away! But little did i realize that they are not for such casual discarding.
A big fat guy with paan stained teeth would cycle along the roads in the hot summer afternoon ( the word summer would be redundant for Chennai's weather forecast) anyway getting back...
His cycle used to carry a dirty bundle wrapped in an equally dirty piece of cloth. Quite contrasting to this would be brand new shinny aluminium or the so called 'ever' silver patharams!!!
My grandma would should for one of these ubiquitous 'Paathiram Kaarans' ( for the uninitiated literally translated it means Vessel Man in English) and show him the bundle of old clothes my aunts would have left. He would promptly sort them into four bundles.
Category A is Premium! It is reserved for silk Saree's, silk dhotis and the likes
Category B is Ladies Section! All other varieties of Saree's, salwar kameez, skirts, kurtis etc find their place in this category
Category C is Men's - talk about equal opportunity ;) Shirts, trousers, cotton dhotis etc are dumped in this pile
last and the least regarded section is the Dump Category which has anything from a kids t-shirt to a misplaced duppata
After the initial screening process comes the round of valuation! Each item in a specific category was rated at a particular price and the final buying price was arrived at. Usually its an unimpressive figure because after all its used clothing.
My grandmother used to bargain (very effectively!!!) with him and increase the value by at least 50-100 Rs. Once they reach consensus - he bundles the clothes and sets them aside.
Until now he is the tough buyer - from now on he plays the part of the eternally sweet seller!!!
For the money he has just paid my grandma, he promptly displays shinny vessels, copper bottom kadais and storage dabbas. My grandmother carefully scrutinizes the articles...picks up two vessels for the money he has just paid. Cash once again exchanges hands and both go their way happy!!!
For me it used to remain a mystery as to why would someone buy old clothes for cash??? Only recently did i manage to muster up courage to ask one of these 'paathiram kaaran' about it. 'Oh athuva maaaaa' blared the guy in a tone that could tear my ear drums in no time. I promptly moved a few feet behind and let him complete his sentence. He said these small scale 'paatiram kaarans' collect clothes and in turn give it to a accumulator. The accumulator in turn refurbishes these clothes - fixes the missing button, sews the missing stitch and sells it to christian missionaries and charity groups who in turn send it to places like Africa and South America.
Incredible - from Balakrishna Naicken street, west mambalam to some remote village in Namibia or Botswana!!!
The company Wearable Clothing does just that - with some Jing Bang Marketing as i call it!
Recycled cardboard boxes to dump your clothes into - instead of buying vessels you get tax benefit slips to save some money off your income. They sell it to charitable organizations and make money and donate part of the money made back to the charitable organization. At the end of the day everybody is happy!
How commonsensical...!!!
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