I finally heard back: X-Kilts goes commercial (NOT)

[Alan H]

My church is quite involved in Human rights in Central America. We are officially a sister church to a church in a small community in Nicaragua. There are about a dozen medium-sized industries in this community, one of which is a co-operative sewing factory. About a year ago a group of people from church went down there to visit and came back with the news that the sewing co-op was in trouble. The Co-op was owned by the sewing staff and the management, like all co-ops are. They paid the workers/owners about half-again more, daily than the nearby non co-op sewing factories, and that means about nine dollars a day.. But they were hurting for work, subsisting, literally on sewing underwear and simple garments for the Jesuit Fathers in Central America.

About 9 months ago I had this whacko idea that I could have the factory sew up X-Kilts, import them into the USA, sell them and use the proceeds to fund some Human Rights activities. I dreamed up some catchy names, etc. etc. It all seemed pretty outrageous, but when I found out that several church members were going to go down there for Thanksgiving, I banged out an X-kilt in some inespensive khaki material and gave it to one of the church members and asked them to give it to the sewing co-op and pitch me an estimate on price for making 1,000 of them.

I got the answer back this week. 1,000 X kilts, in one fabric (probably khaki) if I supplied the fabric, would cost me about $7,500, with a margin of error running up to about $10,000. I could have them make the kilts in 4 sizes S, M, L, XL.

I'm condensing the information here, OK? But the labor cost for making an X-Kilt with button closures (not velcro) would be something around $7.50 - $10.00 per kilt. Import duty would likely double that cost.... So $20 a kilt as a very rough estimate, knowing that import duties are a wildly unpredictable thing.

This was if I supplied the fabric. If *they* supply the fabric it's more, like $10 - $12.50 a kilt, and including import duties, make that $25 a kilt.

Point of Entry would probably be Los Angeles, so I have to get them shipped up from LA....another $2 per kilt. Then I have to handle them here...sort them out store them, etc. Call that another five bucks a kilt. So now we're up to $32 per kilt.

I don't know diddly about these things, but I figure if I throw in five more bucks a kilt that will cover stuff like credit card company charges and junk like that. $37...let's be excessive and call it $40. So total cost to get a marketable kilt in my hands, sewn in Nicaragua, and the basic mechanism to sell the flippin' thing is something on the order of $40

So if I want to make a 100% profit, not too far off in the retail world I need to charge $80, plus shipping for an X-Kilt.

Now....can I sell X-Kilts for $80? I'd say yes. Yes, I could sell a whole lot of X-Kilts at $80 a pop, and I'd make $40,000 doing it, for 1,000 kilts. If Utilikilts can sell kilts that are more complex (no pockets on these X-Kilts) for $120 and up, I think I can sell these for $80. if not exactly that, it'd be something roughly in that ballpark. I might be off a fair bit here because I know absolutely nothing about any of this, but I bet I'm not off by a factor of, say 2.

But I'm not going to do it. You want to know why?

Because if I did that I wouldn't be a kiltmaker. I'd be an import-export merchandiser, and I could give a rip about being an import-export merchandiser. Also, I had NO idea, not a CLUE how much work it is to set all this stuff up. It's a full-time flippin' job to do this. I'd have to quit my regular job to pull it off. All this to donate some money (quite a bit of money) to Social Justice Non-Profits. I'm all for Social Justice, but quit my job to do this? Forget it.

So in summary.....it ain't worth it. AND....until Wal Mart orders not 1,000 kilts, but 100,000 kilts, they're still not going to cost a whole lot less than what I just outlined up above. This was eye-opening. In China, the labor is about half of what it is in Nicaragua.

NOTE: I created the X-Kilt for the people of X-Marks, so that *YOU* could make your own kilt, learn how to do it, and appreciate and understand what the professionals turn out. Nearly 80 X-Kilts have been made, and that brings me a great deal of joy..

Turning a profit on the X-Kilt was never, ever part of the plan.