akjack wrote:poor quality goods, tainted food products, dangerous toys for kids, etc. etc. yes, cheap labor and undocumented workers are the facts. China or Mexico or India, it's all the same.
Actually, it's not all the same. Companies that outsource to the lowest bidder, and do not establish quality practices for supply chain management, will eventually have problems in the market. The country of origin is totally irrelevant. The reason the US and the EU established and continue to improve safety standards is to address both internally & externally sourced products. When a company establishes cheapest price as the only criteria for selecting a supplier, and does nothing to ensure quality, the outcome is easily predicted.
The e-coli spinach & lettuce contaminations in the US were from locally produced products. The sources were never identified and the problems only became apparent when people became ill or died. Poor supply chain management.
The largest recalls of beef were made in the US due to e-coli & BSE contamination within the last year. 22 million pounds followed by 140 million pounds for 2 incidents. These aren't the only 2, do a google on beef recalls for the past 2 years and you will learn why some countries ban US beef due to documented safety issues.
If you really want to become informed, do a little research on mycotoxins and other food contaminates, and rejection of US-produced food by other countries. Poor supply chain management results in product problems.
It's not likely you will see these on CNN or Fox, yet they are all in the public record.
This is not to say that there aren't problems with quality & safety in products originating in products from other countries, nor that suppliers will lie and cheat. If a company purchasing these products doesn't have quality assurance programs in place they are fools and will suffer the consequences. If companies anywhere repeatedly violate safety standards they should be dropped, countries that do have an adequate safety framework in place should be banned.
You need to expand your information sources and knowledge, or you will continue to be misinformed and lead down the wrong path.
akjack wrote:Websites are just the new phonebook or bullitin board. They all look the same now with the generic templates, small type, music and flash and heavy manipulated images. Without the manipulation usually by graphic tech persons, not the photog, the images would look mundane and many times that is what the customer will get unless they want to spend more on "artwork".
The phonebook was your example. If you can not tell the difference between a well designed professional website and one done on the cheap by an amateur, you need to look at more websites. Try looking at these as if you were a customer and gain some insight.
akjack wrote:These countries you speak of already limit the number of students accepted into school even befor high school. This is why their test scores and achievment is so much higher than average, no child left behind American schools. (see video today at Yahoo)
You need to go deeper than a Yahoo video to understand the educational systems and role of the family both in the US and outside the US.
akjack wrote:A lot of what is said above about marketing, product, service should be left in the textbook 101 course where it belongs as theory as much of it is not applicable in the real world of competitive photography where there are no barriers to entry due to educational standards, lack of infrastructure (expensive studio and equipment) expense....this is why so many wannabes say they do location....the only cost is a digital camera !
You clearly have no understanding of business and marketing. A fundamental understanding and practice of some of the basics - Price points, market segmentation, value propositions and marketing communication - drive successful business.
You will be surprised to learn that the 4 marketing terms I mentioned are some of the key differences between a successful business and one that fails, for all sized businesses.
By now you should have learned that the photography market is segmented several ways, one of which is based on value/price. Which segment do you want to work in? What will you deliver that differentiates you from the others? What is your value proposition? how will you identify and communicate with your prospects?
Government control and subsidies are definitely not the answer. Governments continue to demonstrate their inefficiencies and frequent ineffectiveness in most of their undertakings.