So during my La Paz trip in terms of work I had some definite emotional ups and downs, anything ranging from being super excited and hopeful to being depressed and discouraged and confused. Sonia and I had really high expectations for sales at the fair based on what other people had told us…going to the embassy and especially being before Christmas we thought people would be out buying products for gifts. Unfortunately the most popular products seemed to be little crafts that were Christmas decorations that some of the people were selling. We ended up selling only 2 shawls, 4 scarves and a blanket…whereas we had brought with us 70 shawls and 40 scarves and lugged them around in a suitcase from Cochabamba to La Paz. I have to tell you, it was quite depressing sitting there at the fair after about an hour and a half not having sold one thing at all…and I think for all of the purchases except for the blanket, I guilt-tripped and chatted people up into buying the products by playing the “hi, I’m a PC volunteer” card. The employees there ranged from Foreign Service Officers working in all areas to people working for USAID. One guy that bought a few items from Sonia actually was a volunteer himself in Costa Rica several years ago and then while he was purchasing I used my selling skills (which are actually pretty pathetic if you ask me) to get a couple who were his friends to buy a few things as well. You would have thought after learning to make random small-talk during sorority recruiting and campus recruiting later on that I would be good at selling something…anything. Well I have to say that I still need to work on it. The discouraging thing about the whole fair was the realization that in order for me to help her business be more successful (with sustainability, one of the top goals of our work here in PC), that it is going to be a tough road in these next two years. I think I had my first taste of failure or expectations that weren’t met at the fair. They say that 90% of the projects that you try in the PC fail…and you just have to try and try again, so I guess here’s to keeping on trying. If nothing else the trip was a good experience to bond with Sonia but I just hope she doesn’t hate my guts for making her think she was going to have huge sales at the fair (which I believed myself). The competition for alpaca shawls in La Paz is just ridiculous though and it was a big wake up call that even if you have a good and unique product in terms of quality and design (she probably has some of the best quality that I’ve seen and also does designs that are a lot more colorful that other stuff in the stores we went to) it doesn’t guarantee success or marketability. Besides, every woman in La Paz that you’re trying to sell a shawl to probably has at least 10 of them hanging up in her closet.
After the fair we went and did some “market research” at artisan’s alley…which is this amazing street of shopping for souvenirs…if nothing else, La Paz has amazing shopping…all sorts of knit products, jewelry, accessories, pretty much a shopper’s paradise that’s very affordable as well. Basically this research involved us going into all these stores where I played the foreigner card touching everything and asking about prices of products similar to hers, asking if they were handmade, what they were made of etc…while Sonia tailed me around, gave me some insight into what she thought was handmade or not, and then told me that she thought that the store owners were getting annoyed with me because I kept on touching everything and taking it out and looking at it but not buying anything. Haha, I guess that’s what you gotta do though. The initial idea was to potentially find some markets for her products in some stores…but that went out the window because we realized that the products being sold as souvenirs were all much cheaper (like half the cost of hers) and lower quality…and then the more expensive stuff in stores was all branded (L.A.M. apparently has like 6 or 7 stores within a 3 block radius). It was good to see what was out there and it gave me a little hope…then I convinced Sonia to come to this Middle Eastern restaurant with me (where she tried several types of food for the first time…several which she didn’t like, others which she did)…and we had all sorts of stuff, wrapped grape leaves, hummus, tabouleh, shish kababs…I didn’t notice until she mentioned it to me but I guess in Bolivia they don’t eat a lot of garlic (although they put onions in everything) so a lot of the garlicky flavors were way too strong for her liking. The one success that made me happy is that she did leave 10 shawls and 10 scarves in different designs for a storeowner who is also the sister of one of the women that works in the PC office…so hopefully she’ll have some success with that, if nothing else to lighten her load.
Other research I did by myself when I went to Zona Sur (super ritzy area of La Paz where a lot of the embassies are located…think massive houses behind walls and gates, kind of rich area of California feel with a Greenwich, CT foofy-ness about it) and walked around in a shopping area there. I went armed with a few of her pamphlets and business cards along with samples of her product thinking there might be markets there…but after walking into a few stores where they were clearly established brands in international markets instead of just little boutiques with several different brands being sold…I had that “oh s**t, I’m in way over my head, no way we’re ready to supply these people or compete with them” feeling so I just went in and once again pretended to be interested in the products…going around getting prices of alpaca shawls and went into this store where they make everything out of alpaca ($400 alpaca dress anyone?) that I was thinking if I were on vacation I might actually buy something from here as a treat to myself…then thinking that if I actually was making the money to buy something like that it might also help…oh well. You live and you learn. I’m still hopeful overall when it comes to working with her because I know she has a great product that isn’t like anything I’ve seen yet (although I can see where people could easily copy it) and there are definitely projects that I can work with her on to make her product more marketable.
I guess that’s what it comes down to…I’m an optimist and in this line of work you have to be or else you’d sit around and cry yourself to sleep over your failures or more likely you’d just be going back to the U.S. The glass is half full my friends!
And of course…when you’re feeling down and in La Paz…you can always buy yourself a nice fried chicken dinner and go on a shopping spree (which includes American peanut butter at $5 a jar, the Mariah Carey Christmas CD, and lots of chocolate bars).
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