21–30 of 415 posts
This feels like the proverbial dollar left on the street that economists say should not exist, so I'm racking my brain trying to figure out what's stopping chains from replicating this. I wonder whether this alternate network is as scrupulous about source tracking and food safety regulations. Those costs could be driving up prices on the traditional retail side.
This feels like the proverbial dollar left on the street that economists say should not exist, so I'm racking my brain trying to figure out what's stopping chains from replicating this. I wonder whether this alternate network is as scrupulous about source tracking and food safety regulations. Those costs could be driving up prices on the traditional retail side.
(basically, supermakets sell produce to Chinatown vendors for a lower price, who then move it to a segment of the market which is willing to buy non-aesthetic food which needs to be eaten in a day or two)
The amount of secret networks and deals Chinese/Chinese Americans pull off is astounding. I don't mean that in a negative way, I'm mostly impressed (I live near Brooklyn's Chinatown).
I wouldn't say it's "secret," it's just regular business conducted using a language most Americans can't read or understand. Probably even in dialects that most Chinese people can't speak.
Cheaper and better? That defies efficient markets theory. I guess any sufficiently advanced social network is indistinguishable from magic.
Jokes aside, the truth is that with the original definition, there are so many barriers to markets being efficient and behaving in that idealized way that in reality I think it's a unicorn that can't exist, or at least rare enough to take with a huge grain of salt. It's a simplified model of how things might work, and perhaps if you squint a little it does seem to work that way, but not when you look closer. People behave irrationally all the time, there are all sorts of factors and incentives, social, political, and game-theoretic, that prevent actors from operating in certain desirable ways.
I think it's hilarious that Chinatown may have out-capitalisted the capitalists, and cut out many middlemen to deliver better product for cheaper. Sad that they probably won't get much recognition for it, perhaps only some lobbying to block it.
This feels like the proverbial dollar left on the street that economists say should not exist, so I'm racking my brain trying to figure out what's stopping chains from replicating this. I wonder whether this alternate network is as scrupulous about source tracking and food safety regulations. Those costs could be driving up prices on the traditional retail side.
This is also the reason that Whole Foods has gone downhill, they used to use similar networks but as they've expanded they've been forced to use larger more mainstream suppliers.
Cheaper and better? That defies efficient markets theory. I guess any sufficiently advanced social network is indistinguishable from magic.
This feels like the proverbial dollar left on the street that economists say should not exist, so I'm racking my brain trying to figure out what's stopping chains from replicating this. I wonder whether this alternate network is as scrupulous about source tracking and food safety regulations. Those costs could be driving up prices on the traditional retail side.
> what's stopping chains from replicating this Probably volume. Chinatown is extremely dense and has such high foot traffic that it makes sense to operate without refrigeration, with goods stocked from neighborhood warehouses. Most parts of the country don't have anywhere near that level of density, so the economies of scale wont work out like they do in Chinatown.
Fascinating. I'm wondering if there's an opportunity for a tech startup to replicate this network more generally. I could see the network connecting the sellers with the farmers directly, plus coordinating delivery of the veggies... it's an easier problem than ubereats delivery as you've got fewer nodes. Maybe you even skip the sellers entirely, which basically gets you to CSA boxes but those always felt expensive to…
Fascinating. I'm wondering if there's an opportunity for a tech startup to replicate this network more generally. I could see the network connecting the sellers with the farmers directly, plus coordinating delivery of the veggies... it's an easier problem than ubereats delivery as you've got fewer nodes. Maybe you even skip the sellers entirely, which basically gets you to CSA boxes but those always felt expensive to…
Where does the food in these secret warehouse networks come from? Is it actually equivalent in quality and oversight to the "mainstream" farm networks?