#BUT FOR THESE THERE'S LIKE 80% THAT THE CUSTOMS OFFICE WILL SNATCH THEM AND MAKE ME PAY THE IMPORT TAX

[caenith]

Whining about fucking brexit due to completely stupid, personal issues that definitely fit into 'first world problems' category.

Also doing Very Advanced Math on how to avoid paying to much import tax because fuck magyar posta.

[adashofniallandasprinkleoflunacy]

Coming into anthrorry's office wearing nothing but a robe while he's just sitting at his desk reading a book with his glasses on. You don't say anything, but you push all of the books to the floor and drop the robe while you walk around to the front of his desk. You sit down right in front of him, spread your legs, grab his hair, and he goes to TOWN on your p*ssy (and he also forgets to take his glasses off until after he already makes you cum the first time bc you almost broke them goodbye)

See I get that this is sexy and risky and fun but I know for a fact that if she pushed all his books to the floor, he’d have a fucking aneurysm and would fumble to grab them all because, “Y/N, I was halfway through grading that stack of papers; now they’re all mixed up! I’m gonna have to sit here and sort them back out one by one!”

“Are you serious? I’m standing here naked and you’re worried about grading papers?”

“I have 80 left and they’re due tomorrow!”

She sighs grandly, grabbing the nearest red pen— a fancy copper and gold piece with his name engraved on the side in cursive— and clicking it open. “Here, let me help, then. What’s the subject?”

Harry shoves his glasses up his nose grumpily, beginning to scoop up papers begrudgingly. “They’re first drafts for the course’s term papers. They choose a controversial topic and deconstruct it based off ethical philosophies, using peer reviewed journals as sources.”

“Oh, that’s easy. Intro stuff, basically.”

“You would think, since it’s an intro level class.” Harry quips sarcastically, glancing up at her over the rim of his glasses with a flat gaze and deadpan scowl. “But I’m pretty sure it’s academically unjust to let someone who isn’t involved in the major have any jurisdiction over grades, since they’re not versed well enough on the topics and—” His eyes suddenly snap downwards, his expression bristling with newfound panic. “Hey, don’t touch Guinevere!”

Y/N blinks at him blankly, startled by his random explosive reaction. “Who?”

“Guinevere.” Harry reaches up and snatches the elegant writing utensil she has in her grasp, waving it around symbolically before shoving it into the back pocket of his slacks protectively. He releases a measured exhale, going back to organizing papers as he explains himself in a level, matter-of-fact tone. “My favorite pen, and probably my most prized possession. It’s a hand-crafted piece my parents gifted me for my birthday last year, made with real gold. She’s very important to me, so I don’t like anyone touching her.”

“Right, okay…I can respect that.” She nods her head slowly in understanding, but purses her lips curiously as support for her next line. “I am, however, hung up on the fact that you gave a fucking pen a name and gender. Could you possibly be any more of a catastrophic nerd?”

“Don’t be so dramatic.” Harry grumbles, placing papers inside their designated manilla folders, separating them based on whether they’ve been scored yet or not. “Some people name their cars, I name my fancy custom-made pen. The difference between the two is insignificant.”

“It’s pretty significant, actually. Particularly, to my amusement.”

“Oh, well, consider me honored that I can be of entertainment to you.” He bites pettily, but the disheveled curls strewn across his forehead makes his anger look more adorable than anything. “Now are you just gonna stand there or are you gonna help clean up the mess you made?”

Y/N sighs in mild disappointment, checking that her long coat is buttoned securely before she drops to her knees beside him to lend a hand. “Not the mess I was hoping I’d have to clean up, but whatever.”

“You and I both, Bradbury.”

[realprincipalbroker]

Chase her tail

You can’t tell me there’s nothing to be gleaned from it, after all. 

It’s the big blue book, now. For generations, whatever a generation is, now, but generations, plural, that’s no lie, it’s the one they’ve been using in real estate license prelicensing courses in Hawaii. We all know it, and if you’re not an agent affiliated with one of the brokerage firms here, you’re probably familiar with it, and flipped through it once or twice throughout your time doing whatever it is you do here in downtown Honolulu. Even the students at University of Hawaii, have had their reasons. What can we glean, outside of the world of marketing and advertising (we are all honest about what a broker really is) they’d be teaching at a class at Shidler? It turns out, a lot, and among the many influences for Vitousek and Reilly, whose co-authorship of this book gained them their name recognition in the Hawaii real estate community dating back decades, is the history you’d find taught in a Hawaiian studies course. Terms like “Great Mahele” are instrumental to understanding the various snapshots it presents, directly, in the case of the introduction and its treatment of the history of the kingdom and land use pre-Annexation, or indirectly, by way of it’s walk through the practical day to day work of brokers to escrow agents to surveyors in what would be any ordinary day, today, getting deeds off to Bureau of Conveyances for the first buyers of the dozens of high rise condominiums that in a decade joined the skyline along Kapiolani, in Kakaako, with cranes still at work in Ward Village, and even Waikiki where Lilia begins to take shape in the Title Guaranty right around the corner from the Topa towers closest to the Waterfront, or laying the stakes around a single family home on a .16 acre lot in Makiki as escrow opens, a Hawaii custom of sorts, or as a first year agent with a newly minted RS license from PVL hung with a small brokerage house out of a commercial center in Pearl City and Waimalu and Pearlridge, right up against Pearl Harbor, like one of the several at Harbor Center, putting a Honolulu Board of Realtors’ issued Sentrilock key into a lockbox in Kaimuki and hearing those keys “drop out” that way, and just knowing what to do, on the verge of showing a four bedroom in the heart of Mililani, built in the late 70s or early 80s, as Castle & Cook led the development of the central Oahu suburbs, landscape of private property rights, and its roots in the Hawaiian kingdom. What can we glean by knowing the history and the dare I say “esoteric” knowledge of real estate brokers?

A lot, of course. 

But Chapter 4 is packed with a few bonuses that as I walk the stretches of King Street and Hotel Street that Michael Corcoran reminded us was, indeed, called Shit Street, and the ramen restaurant on Fort Street Mall, Honolulu’s Times Square, oh, no, that’s the newly renovated Central Pacific Bank Building’s plaza, so Wall Street with the big bull statue, let’s go with that, and the old Piroscki shop around the corner where indeed cabbage and cheese wrapped with chicken in a delicacy that on the damp sidewalks of the pedestrian mall and the sky blue once more without a cloud in sight, you know Honolulu, takes me back to dreaming of doing business with Russia when I was a ten year old in slacks and a Bishop Street cardboard Hawaiian shirt from Costco at a time when it was definitely, undoubtedly, no match for the silk blend of what the Tori Richard catalog had already started using exclusively, the Piroscki and the steam in 69 degree weekday harbourfront morning from seeming to me to be this thing you have to make last, like something of an hourglass in a Faustus myth or else Satan’s just gonna come in and snatch up and make good on the deal, you know, well this is where I take the soul now, right? Eat the second half from the way we were with offices on Fort Street where the last manual lift still ran and the last elevator man still worked even through the early 2000s past the staples of new Bishop Street, past the “libations” of a Smith and Kings, past a Stewbum and Stonewall, around the corner and back toward Shit Street and whatever year this is, Livestock Tavern, at the end of a row of dive bars that starts down that way with Smith's Union, the one you’d sneak into when you’re a year too young, down through signs for Bar 35, with its own history, some but surely not all of it, minted in bronze, on the plaque right there at the door if you’re more into history than their signature Mexican Lollipops or Miss Chinatowns when the doors open, four hours after Aloha Tower signaled 12 o’clock with its bells. Today, this, then, must be the one. Livestock Tavern. Something about it. The end of the road. They should call it Hemlock or something. The one on the corner where it’s all over but come to think it whose to stop me from darting westbound on Hotel Street from right here and the thing with True North, as with lighthouses in the bleak way Charles Dickens saw them, at least narrating, as Pip, Great Expectations, right from the start, moral compasses, shining examples, they’re just as ugly a part of the landscape as the Prison Hulk over that way and the slime of the Thames embodied that’s got me up to breaking him free now from, who knows what, mortality itself, I guess, Livestock Tavern, the daycap on our well endowed life well lived, where for you and I, platinum hair’s a thing now, right? Remember when we were kids? They’re shuffling in now so I guess we started lunch a little late, but this “Seasonal American Eatery,” that’s what we did it all for, and here we are. There’s no winter of our lives and there’s no True North and there’s no wrong side of the block, when this is square one and the only where that life hasn’t taken us is everywhere and we still have to sneak into the bar when we’re 20, right over there, Smith's Union Bar. It doesn’t worry me that I’ve finished the Piroscki. What else is a Piroscki for? Walking, through all of it, there’s a few things from that Chapter 4, worth noting. You see, the HICENTRAL statewide MLS the agents use for listing properties rightfully structures data fields to reflect the offerings in the local markets, and we know they have a lot of leaseholds here. They list them and sell them and they’re done here unlike a lotta places in the country, in a pretty high ratio to our good old Fee Simple, right? That’s what Chapter 4 is all about.  

Vitousek introduces the estate known as a Fee Tail Estate, and is extremely frank about the rationale. It’s history. Though estates and title vesting have been swayed through the last two centuries to be driven by different forces, and new definitions of what constitutes value that we live under in the 21st century, perhaps farther removed from old ideas such as this, rooted in heritability and the use of marriage and family as a means and a gauge of social control, with the attempt to reward certain mating patterns, thereby instituting purportedly “eugenic” pressures, that favor, in the example of Fee Tail Estates, landowners that do it that way, with of course the underlying assumption that the existing elites, the deserving, the well endowed, and well bred are synonymous and the Fee Tail Estate secured their multi-generational wealth, or rather, their stranglehold over the time and identities of those whose lack of title sifted them into a lower strata of existence to serve them. The Bureau of Conveyances Grantor Grantee Index is something we can analyze to better understand the prevalence of certain ideas about marriage and family. I’ve been touting what a treasure trove UH West Oahu’s Uluulu library will prove to be when it’s done archiving all of the multimedia it’s set out to. Though the popular Bishop Street publication Hawaii Business Magazine (I know they’d hate me calling it a Bishop Street publication, Steve can call me and complain personally if he wants to) in recent months seemed to echo my sentiments by taking us inside the efforts at UH West Oahu, I caught up with the librarians in mid 2021 and if you browse the available media in their catalog right now, you’ll see the archives are far from being ready for us. For, say, a sociology student with a Hawaii focus or a journalism student, the entire collection of KHON, KGMB, KHNL, KITV newscasts that Uluulu is poised to have digitized, when all is said and done is an absolute necessity to applying content analysis in the establishment a cultural milieu.

 By the way, on that Uluulu deal, when they get that all done, you tell them now, we’re expecting closed captioning and transcriptriptions to make the material mineable by code as well as applying something as simple as a keyword search, and since the project began the addition of this has not only become evidently possible, through the very accurate computer speech to text generated closed captions on YouTube for the shows of a couple friends getting together to talk politics or do comedy on the weekend in a living room or talk gaming in “the basement,” but for any librarian and archivist, very easy to ask for. For a journalism student, PhD theses on the efficacy of certain styles of broadcast presentation or which newsrooms were the most ethical and produced packages of the greatest public interest, even something as the effect of station and newsroom management changes on, say, the quality of news reporting or, say, even an undergraduate research paper on the way in which one of these particular station management changes, the inside baseball, impacted or changed the editorial standards and newsworthiness for better or worse of the packages the station was airing, such a library and such an archive is an absolute necessity to that student’s making an eventual contribution to his discipline, journalism, bettering the public interests. 

The problem with morality. In reality, Rich Family is someone that had a father that cared about his son's penis, that simple.

The reasons, for everything, actually, surely must’ve shifted with the social movements of generations now gone, and others we lived and breathed through, bearing witness to shattered glass and broken ceilings and new borderlines to have to cross.

To think, to wine and dine a female in one of these establishments, and how high paying sedentary work necessary to be a man in good fortune, despite these establishments and the apparent joy about those doing their mating dances on females in there speaking to a demand for what isn’t being supplied nearly enough, as evidenced by the piss soaked homeless streetwalkers and sidewalk sitters right there. And, yes, I know there are reasons and there are many. I’m talking about work as, say, a banker for Bank of Hawaii on one of the highest floors in their building that I would never say, notwithstanding architecture, real estate isn't everything when the statement that matters is the one you get in the mail, is never overshadowed by the name emblazoned on the highest building in the financial district right across the street at 999 Bishop with a degree in Economics at least from UH, the 30 floor there, is off limits to the low IQ, so-called unskilled laborers whose lot in life it was to keep their eye on the State of Hawaii Civil service job openings to see if they need a new lot of janitors that know the ins and outs of Simple Green and the cheap but sturdy enough, built to last, built to replace with ease, whatever Boeing was saying about the 737-200s, thing will decompress, oxygen masks will drop, you'll do an emergency landing right at LAX your destination out of McCarran in Las Vegas maybe a little wind coming in by then through the roof but that plane's out of service now and Boeing forever changed aviation with the 707 and this is an even bigger revolution, order a couple more of these and they'll always be there to swap out the old ones, hold up LAX for 10 minutes, they gotta bring the equipment out for you, the airport fire guys will have something to do finally in between inaugurating all these new routes the airlines are adding because of this dirty bird, she gets the job done, you'll be right in LA and on time, too, no doubt, we had to wear the masks on this one, a story to tell at the meeting downtown around 7th street this afternoon, the boys down there all know when you thumbs up them through the cockpit window, this baby's ready for the scrapyard. This mop is going into the green dumpster. What could ever go wrong with a 3M engineered plastic yellow pale for the mop with the big handle get a good hold of that with your foot. Really push that in. Now that's how your wring out a mop. Never had one of those fail on my watch yet. We got a couple new ones coming anyway. And you’ve been doing this for 20 years, even. Another walk down the corridor of the countless ones you’ve taken, the people mover isn’t really a good choice when you’ve got the mop and the pale or the cart with simple green and bleach and new rolls of toilet paper for an entire quarter of the inter-island terminal. It’s a little quieter here sometime between four and five you’ve got a few of those Hawaiian 717s pulling up to the gate and the planes are half full on days like these so they board fast and yet the leisurely pace at which it all happens, on days like these, between four and five, is nothing like the other terminal. They’re adding a whole new wing to the airport now and they’ll probably have you doing a lot there, too, so you hear. You walked around there when you got off yesterday and they’re moving fast with it. You hear somewhere that Hawaiian’s probably going to have the whole thing to free up the other concourses, and it’s amid the million images you see and sometimes forget to see, it’s your silhouette with the pale and the mop that stands between the world and those new blue 737s that are coming in now. But that’s behind us. That’s on that side. We’re here. And whole new territories to conquer, right around the corner. Two decades. I lose track of time, sometimes. Is that a long time, is that next to no time? Same yellow pale. Same industrial mop. I remember 737-200s of Aloha Airlines here in this terminal, before. Wasn’t here the day they shuttered. Glad I wasn’t. So much commotion. And I heard people cried over those airplanes. God, what for. They had them out there in storage on one of the taxiways by the cargo hangars for a long time. Such is life. I know a clean floor when I see one. There, that looks good. They’re pushing back a plane that’ll be in Lihue in half an hour and that’s about all that’s going on. Some guy’s wearing a Columbia jacket getting one of those tall white cups at the Starbucks over there and you’re working your way a little closer and he’s mixing Raw Sugar into it with a wooden stirrer, and you’re just close enough to see it, it looks like he’s got a ticket to Kona, and you know that one’s going to board all the way back there right around where you walked in. Right from Vancouver, where else, right? Seattle? The year you started working. That’s right around when he was born. So we take the mop and the pale back to the utility closet right here, right over here, just like always, and I might as well start restocking toilet paper, right? How much money did I make today? I never thought about it before. Well I’ve already made enough this week to hop one of these 717s and I’ve already made enough this month to get myself to San Francisco, or Fairbanks, you know, Main Land kind of thing. To think for once I’m the one thinking if there were anywhere in the world I could go, where would it be. The fourteen year old girls you’ve seen getting off of planes from LA or who knows where made up like Olivia Jade Gianulli or Jon Benet Ramsay, Olivia Jade Gianulli, that’s something my niece taught me at a birthday party I went to in Waimanalo around New Years. The makeup, crop top and felt neck contoured pillows, you just see it in their eyes and such a tender age for the 24k gold earrings. Somehow I know 24k when I see it. Those are the questions they ask. If anywhere in the world kinds of questions. This airport was on their list, so, oh well. I look at my face in the mirror while I spray the sink, here. The thing with time. There are four directions, north, south, east, and west. We all know that. The past. Milestones Ones in aviation history. They've got all these pictures up. I remember some of it, sure. History. Old military planes and WWII imagery and something about supersonic flight. I’ve never seen a Concorde come through here, not once, but what the hell do I know, right? History. Right here at HNL. The past. Yeah, there’s a horizon we aren’t crossing yet. Who knows if it’s a trip shorter than the one they’re on, roaring toward the heavens and slipping this place for good until she’s wheels down right over the horizon of a Makaha sunset or as long as the one to Newark. Some tickets, tickets for that one, they’re not easy to book. If there were anywhere, really, I believe it’s nowhere a compass would point me. Turn on the faucet. Looks good. I know a clean sink when I see one. 

[orbemnews]

As Online Shopping Surged, Amazon Planned Its New York Takeover When the pandemic gripped New York City, it propelled an enormous surge in online shopping that has not waned, even in a metropolis where stores are rarely far away. People who regularly bought online are now buying more, while those who started ordering to avoid exposure to the virus have been won over by the advantages. The abrupt shift in shopping patterns has made New York a high-stakes testing ground for urban deliveries, with its sheer density both a draw and a logistical nightmare. It has also highlighted the need for an unglamorous yet critical piece of the e-commerce infrastructure: warehouse space to store and sort packages and satisfy customer expectations for faster and faster delivery. Amazon has spent the pandemic embarking on a warehouse shopping spree in New York, significantly expanding its footprint in the biggest and most lucrative market in the country. It has snatched up at least nine new warehouses in the city, including a 1 million-plus square foot behemoth rising in Queens that will be its largest in New York, and today has at least 12 warehouses in the five boroughs. And it has added to its roster more than two dozen warehouses in suburbs surrounding the city. No other large competitor has a single warehouse in the city and Amazon has largely left most of its chief rivals, like Wal-Mart and Target, behind. “Amazon had people making deals,” said Adam Gordon, whose real estate firm Wildflower owns several warehouses in the city. “And they were outcompeting.” While New York’s narrow streets, chronic traffic jams and brutal lack of parking are all formidable challenges, the city also has a severe shortage of warehouses just when they are most needed to properly grease an efficient delivery system. New York has about 128 million square feet of industrial space, far less than many smaller cities. Indianapolis, whose population is just one-tenth that of New York’s, has nearly double the space. Chicago is the nation’s leader with more than 1.2 billion square feet. Many packages come to New York from New Jersey and Pennsylvania, where there is room to build bigger and cheaper warehouses. And in the past year Amazon has added 14 new warehouses in New Jersey and on Long Island, totaling more than 7 million square feet. But having warehouses in the city is more cost effective and can trim roughly 20 percent off delivery expenses compared with deliveries that originate in New Jersey. “We are excited to continue to invest in the state of New York by adding new delivery stations,” said Deborah Bass, an Amazon spokeswoman, adding that the company’s goal was to “become part of the fabric of New York City by embracing the people, the needs, and the spirit of the community.” Amazon’s rapid expansion in New York has also drawn more scrutiny to the treatment of its workers, an issue that the company has faced in other parts of the country. Amazon has sought to quash efforts by warehouse employees to form unions — including on Staten Island — and a high-profile battle is currently being waged in Alabama. In New York, the attorney general has sued Amazon over conditions at two of its local warehouses, accusing the company of failing to properly clean its buildings and conduct adequate contact-tracing, as well as of taking “swift retaliatory action” to silence employee complaints. An Amazon spokeswoman disputed the allegations and said the company cared “deeply about the health and safety” of its workers. Amazon’s growth in New York comes two years after it abandoned plans to build a gleaming new headquarters in Queens. A chorus of lawmakers and progressive activists had opposed granting one of the world’s wealthiest companies billions of dollars in government incentives that the giant retailer had won by making cities compete against each other. But New York remains an alluring prize, and Amazon’s string of warehouses in the city puts it in a strong position to benefit from the huge spike in online shopping set off by the pandemic. Roughly 2.4 million packages are delivered in the city every day, nearly half a million more than before the pandemic, and city data shows that 80 percent of deliveries are to residential customers, compared with 40 percent before the outbreak. The torrent of e-commerce crosses all categories: daily grocery deliveries have more than doubled, restaurant and prepared food deliveries have increased by 12 percent and household goods deliveries have jumped by 24 percent, according to an analysis by José Holguín-Veras and Cara Wang, professors at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute who work on transportation issues. “The challenge now is urban deliveries,” Mr. Holguín-Veras said. “And if you look at the numbers, they are only going to increase.” While there will likely be some decline in orders as the outbreak eases, the overall trajectory is clear, experts say. “The pandemic has accelerated the adoption of e-commerce by five years in one year because users have been forced to adapt,” said Marc Palazzolo, a transportation consultant for Kearny, a consulting firm that has advised the city’s business leaders on e-commerce. By 2045, the total volume of freight moving through New York City is expected to hit 540 million tons a year, up from 365 million tons today, according to city data. Still, the online shopping boom will only worsen problems like congestion and pollution that were already bad before the pandemic, sending flotillas of delivery trucks across the city and flooding sidewalks and lobbies with packages. It has come during a perilous period for New York’s small businesses, which have been battered by the pandemic with nearly 3,000 having closed for good as of last August, according to the most recent data available from the city comptroller’s office. Small businesses struggle to compete online with retailers that typically charge less for the same items and have a far more robust delivery infrastructure. “Building e-commerce capabilities isn’t easy,’’ said Jonathan Bowles, executive director of the Center for an Urban Future, a research organization. “It requires a lot more than just having a website.’’ For larger retailers, having warehouses closer to consumers will become more crucial in an increasingly competitive online market. But the city, once a manufacturing center filled with factories, is not particularly welcoming. To try to protect residential neighborhoods from pollution and traffic, zoning rules limit the construction of warehouses to designated manufacturing districts. “There’s no more space to build new warehouses, so it’s leaving most retailers out of the growth,” said Gabriel Cepeda, the founder of Pickups Technologies, a storage and logistics company. Construction is underway or about to begin on new factories that will have roughly 8.7 million square feet of space in all, including a 1.2 million square-foot UPS site in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Three warehouses under construction will have multiple levels, which is common in Asia, and multiple loading docks that can be used by one company or divided among several. Amazon has signed leases at two of them. The opening of warehouses has brought some economic benefits, leading to the hiring of thousands of workers — some part-time jobs start at $17.25 an hour — at a time when many city residents are jobless. Mr. Cepeda is creating a homegrown distribution system of “mini-warehouses.” He has recruited more than 1,000 residents in Manhattan and Brooklyn who will get paid to use their apartments to store goods for retailers and send them out for delivery. Amazon, which owns Whole Foods, has also used the grocery stores to fulfill online orders, with its workers often outnumbering store customers. Walmart had a warehouse in the Bronx through Jet.com, a now-defunct shopping site it owned, but later vacated the property, which is now leased by Amazon. Wal-Mart — which has no stores in the city — uses warehouses in Pennsylvania to serve online customers. Target, which started same-day delivery in the city in 2017 and has about two dozen stores in New York, has used its stores as mini-distribution hubs, in part because it is cheaper to fulfill an online order in a store than at an out-of-town warehouse. Many smaller companies are feeling the pressure to expand their online and delivery operations. Stop & Shop has hired hundreds of workers to increase its online grocery service in the New York area, including at a warehouse in nearby Jersey City. Pat LaFrieda Meat Purveyors, the butcher for many high-end restaurants, has spent more than $1 million on its online and retail sales operations, selling to shoppers on its website and through Amazon Fresh and ShopRite. That business made up as much as 90 percent of the company’s sales in 2020, up from 15 percent before the pandemic. “Home delivery will be prominent for the next decade,” Mr. LaFrieda said. “It will be key to our success.” The company has reconfigured its New Jersey warehouse to prioritize retail sales and designed new packaging for online customers. While Amazon is laying the foundation for online dominance in New York, Mr. Gordon, the owner of several warehouses, said other retailers would also need to become more nimble to respond to the new ways people are buying. The e-commerce demands also place added pressure on warehouse workers and drivers to fulfill and deliver orders on time, as customers now expect. “Just-in-time delivery and last-mile delivery is what it means,’’ Mr. Gordon said. “You need to be very close to your customer to provide the level of service that people now expect.” Source link Orbem News #Amazon #Online #planned #Shopping #surged #takeover #York

[xtruss]

He Has 17,700 Bottles of Hand Sanitizer and Nowhere to Sell Them!

Amazon cracked down on Coronavirus price gouging. Now, while the rest of the World searches, some sellers are holding stockpiles of sanitizer and masks.

— By Jack Nicas | March 12, 2020 | The New York Times

On March 1, the day after the first coronavirus death in the United States was announced, brothers Matt and Noah Colvin set out in a silver S.U.V. to pick up some hand sanitizer. Driving around Chattanooga, Tenn., they hit a Dollar Tree, then a Walmart, a Staples and a Home Depot. At each store, they cleaned out the shelves.

Over the next three days, Noah Colvin took a 1,300-mile road trip across Tennessee and into Kentucky, filling a U-Haul truck with thousands of bottles of hand sanitizer and thousands of packs of antibacterial wipes, mostly from “little hole-in-the-wall dollar stores in the backwoods,” his brother said. “The major metro areas were cleaned out.”

Matt Colvin stayed home near Chattanooga, preparing for pallets of even more wipes and sanitizer he had ordered, and starting to list them on Amazon. Mr. Colvin said he had posted 300 bottles of hand sanitizer and immediately sold them all for between $8 and $70 each, multiples higher than what he had bought them for. To him, “it was crazy money.” To many others, it was profiteering from a pandemic.

The next day, Amazon pulled his items and thousands of other listings for sanitizer, wipes and face masks. The company suspended some of the sellers behind the listings and warned many others that if they kept running up prices, they’d lose their accounts. EBay soon followed with even stricter measures, prohibiting any U.S. sales of masks or sanitizer.

Now, while millions of people across the country search in vain for hand sanitizer to protect themselves from the spread of the coronavirus, Mr. Colvin is sitting on 17,700 bottles of the stuff with little idea where to sell them.

“It’s been a huge amount of whiplash,” he said. “From being in a situation where what I’ve got coming and going could potentially put my family in a really good place financially to ‘What the heck am I going to do with all of this?’”

Mr. Colvin is one of probably thousands of sellers who have amassed stockpiles of hand sanitizer and crucial respirator masks that many hospitals are now rationing, according to interviews with eight Amazon sellers and posts in private Facebook and Telegram groups from dozens more. Amazon said it had recently removed hundreds of thousands of listings and suspended thousands of sellers’ accounts for price gouging related to the coronavirus.

Amazon, eBay, Walmart and other online-commerce platforms are trying to stop their sellers from making excessive profits from a public health crisis. While the companies aimed to discourage people from hoarding such products and jacking up their prices, many sellers had already cleared out their local stores and started selling the goods online.

Now both the physical and digital shelves are nearly empty.

Mikeala Kozlowski, a nurse in Dudley, Mass., has been searching for hand sanitizer since before she gave birth to her first child, Nora, on March 5. When she searched stores, which were sold out, she skipped getting gas to avoid handling the pump. And when she checked Amazon, she couldn’t find it for less than $50.

“You’re being selfish, hoarding resources for your own personal gain,” she said of the sellers.

Sites like Amazon and eBay have given rise to a growing industry of independent sellers who snatch up discounted or hard-to-find items in stores to post online and sell around the world.

These sellers call it retail arbitrage, a 21st-century career that has adults buying up everything from limited-run cereals to Fingerling Monkeys, a once hot toy. The bargain hunters look for anything they can sell at a sharp markup. In recent weeks, they found perhaps their biggest opportunity: a pandemic.

As they watched the list of Amazon’s most popular searches crowd with terms like “Purell,” “N95 mask” and “Clorox wipes,” sellers said, they did what they had learned to do: Suck up supply and sell it for what the market would bear.

Initially, the strategy worked. For several weeks, prices soared for some of the top results to searches for sanitizer, masks and wipes on Amazon, according to a New York Times analysis of historical prices from Jungle Scout, which tracks data for Amazon sellers. The data shows that both Amazon and third-party sellers like Mr. Colvin increased their prices, which then mostly dropped when Amazon took action against price gouging this month.

At the high prices, people still bought the products en masse, and Amazon took a cut of roughly 15 percent and eBay roughly 10 percent, depending on the price and the seller.

Then the companies, pressured by growing criticism from regulators and customers, cracked down. After the measures last week, Amazon went further on Wednesday, restricting sales of any coronavirus-related products from certain sellers.

“Price gouging is a clear violation of our policies, unethical, and in some areas, illegal,” Amazon said in a statement. “In addition to terminating these third party accounts, we welcome the opportunity to work directly with states attorneys general to prosecute bad actors.”

Mr. Colvin, 36, a former Air Force technical sergeant, said he started selling on Amazon in 2015, developing it into a six-figure career by selling Nike shoes and pet toys, and by following trends.

In early February, as headlines announced the coronavirus’s spread in China, Mr. Colvin spotted a chance to capitalize. A nearby liquidation firm was selling 2,000 “pandemic packs,” leftovers from a defunct company. Each came with 50 face masks, four small bottles of hand sanitizer and a thermometer. The price was $5 a pack. Mr. Colvin haggled it to $3.50 and bought them all.

Hand sanitizer that Mr. Colvin is keeping in a storage locker. Credit: Doug Strickland for The New York Times

He quickly sold all 2,000 of the 50-packs of masks on eBay, pricing them from $40 to $50 each, and sometimes higher. He declined to disclose his profit on the record but said it was substantial.

The success stoked his appetite. When he saw the panicked public starting to pounce on sanitizer and wipes, he and his brother set out to stock up.

Elsewhere in the country, other Amazon sellers were doing the same.

Chris Anderson, an Amazon seller in central Pennsylvania, said he and a friend had driven around Ohio, buying about 10,000 masks from stores. He used coupons to buy packs of 10 for around $15 each and resold them for $40 to $50. After Amazon’s cut and other costs, he estimates, he made a $25,000 profit.

Mr. Anderson is now holding 500 packs of antibacterial wipes after Amazon blocked him from selling them for $19 each, up from $16 weeks earlier. He bought the packs for $3 each.

Eric, a truck driver from Ohio who spoke on the condition that his surname not be published because he feared Amazon would retaliate, said he had also collected about 10,000 masks at stores. He bought each 10-pack for about $20 and sold most for roughly $80 each, though some he priced at $125.

“Even at $125 a box, they were selling almost instantly,” he said. “It was mind-blowing as far as what you could charge.” He estimates he made $35,000 to $40,000 in profit.

Now he has 1,000 more masks on order, but he’s not sure what to do with them. He said Amazon had been vague about what constituted price gouging, scaring away sellers who don’t want to risk losing their ability to sell on its site.

To regulators and many others, the sellers are sitting on a stockpile of medical supplies during a pandemic. The attorney general’s offices in California, Washington and New York are all investigating price gouging related to the coronavirus. California’s price-gouging law bars sellers from increasing prices by more than 10 percent after officials declare an emergency. New York’s law prohibits sellers from charging an “unconscionably excessive price” during emergencies.

An official at the Washington attorney general’s office said the agency believed it could apply the state’s consumer-protection law to sue platforms or sellers, even if they aren’t in Washington, as long as they were trying to sell to Washington residents.

Noah Colvin, Mr. Colvin’s brother, moving boxes of hand sanitizer from his brother’s storage locker on Thursday. Credit: Doug Strickland for The New York Times

Mr. Colvin does not believe he was price gouging. While he charged $20 on Amazon for two bottles of Purell that retail for $1 each, he said people forget that his price includes his labor, Amazon’s fees and about $10 in shipping. (Alcohol-based sanitizer is pricey to ship because officials consider it a hazardous material.)

Current price-gouging laws “are not built for today’s day and age,” Mr. Colvin said. “They’re built for Billy Bob’s gas station doubling the amount he charges for gas during a hurricane.”

He added, “Just because it cost me $2 in the store doesn’t mean it’s not going to cost me $16 to get it to your door.”

But what about the morality of hoarding products that can prevent the spread of the virus, just to turn a profit?

Mr. Colvin said he was simply fixing “inefficiencies in the marketplace.” Some areas of the country need these products more than others, and he’s helping send the supply toward the demand.

“There’s a crushing overwhelming demand in certain cities right now,” he said. “The Dollar General in the middle of nowhere outside of Lexington, Ky., doesn’t have that.”

He thought about it more. “I honestly feel like it’s a public service,” he added. “I’m being paid for my public service.”

As for his stockpile, Mr. Colvin said he would now probably try to sell it locally. “If I can make a slight profit, that’s fine,” he said. “But I’m not looking to be in a situation where I make the front page of the news for being that guy who hoarded 20,000 bottles of sanitizer that I’m selling for 20 times what they cost me.”

After The Times published this article on Saturday morning, Mr. Colvin said he was exploring ways to donate all the supplies.

[itsfinancethings]

New story in Business from Time: How Travelers Are Beating Tough Flight Restrictions Eight Month Into the Pandemic

Travel curbs and border restrictions are upending lives around the globe, with some people resorting to chartering planes on their own or paying many times the regular ticket price to get back to their jobs and homes.

Eight months into the pandemic, the push to normalize is seeing some try to travel internationally again, whether for a long-delayed but essential business trip or to return to where they live. Yet with global coronavirus cases surpassing 18 million and rising, airlines are only reluctantly adding flights to their bare-bones schedules, and virus resurgences have some countries imposing new travel rules.

The flight paralysis underscores how deep and lasting the pandemic’s damage is proving to be. The number of international flights to the U.S., Australia and Japan has fallen more than 80% from a year ago, while flights to China are down by more than 94%, according to aviation industry database Cirium.

Travelers have to be creative just to get on a plane. Support groups have sprung up on Facebook and Wechat for those who have been stuck thousands of miles from their jobs, homes and families. Unable to get tickets, some are attempting to organize private chartered flights, while travel agents say they’re having to bribe airlines for limited seats. Others are shelling out for business or first-class tickets, only to be turned away for lack of the right documentation.

“So many people with families are separated, it’s so heart-breaking,” said Ariel Lee, a mother in Shanghai who administers a few Wechat groups of 1,650 members in total trying to get into China. “The toughest part is there are no clear guidelines and there’s no end date to this.”

The hopeful talk of travel corridors and a summer recovery have faded away among airline industry experts, replaced by a consensus that global travel will not effectively re-start before a vaccine is found.

“We are not going to see a material recovery for international travel in the near future,” said Steven Kwok, associate partner of OC&C Strategy Consultants Ltd. “The pandemic also brings about a consequential impact beyond the virus outbreak –- it is causing a slowdown in the global economy, which will hurt travel appetite for a longer term.”

Higher prices

Chris Wells had been stuck in his hometown in Texas for half a year, eagerly looking to return to Guangzhou, a city in southern China where he’s been living and working for more than a decade. International travel to China has been severely limited by the government to stem imported infections, and any seats on flights are snatched up almost instantly.

Wells, 41, a manager in an international sourcing company, searched and searched for a ticket. The only one he could find: an $8,800 one-way, first-class flight from Chicago to Shanghai, via Zurich.

“It was the only seat available,” he said. “I’d normally never pay that much for a ticket, but I was desperate to get back so I grabbed the seat when I found it.”

Cherry Lin, a Shanghai-based travel agent, said her company is having to pay kickbacks to airlines — more than 10,000 yuan ($1,438) per seat — to get tickets on popular routes like those departing from the U.S. and U.K. that they can then sell to customers.

The flight or passenger cap set by many countries largely limits seats, pushing fares up — a ticket for a direct flight from London to Shanghai is currently going for about $5,000, said Lin, but those are quickly purchased.

Additional seats are likely to pop up this month as more airlines resume flights, “but still not enough that everyone can easily buy online,” she said.

Changing rules

Jessica Cutrera, 44, an American who has lived in Hong Kong for more than a decade, was looking to return to the Asian financial center last month when the city suddenly required a negative virus test for passengers coming from high-risk countries including the U.S. She had to show results from a test taken within 72 hours before boarding and fulfill a requirement that travelers present a letter — signed by a government official — verifying that the lab is accredited.

Getting test results within 72 hours was hard enough given that testing is so backed up in the U.S that results usually aren’t available before a week. Then there was the required letter. “I called everybody I could find,” she said. “Most offices and agencies said no, it didn’t make sense to them to sign such a letter.”

Eventually, someone in California agreed to sign. So Cutrera flew from Louisville, Kentucky, to Chicago, and then to Los Angeles, where she had the test done. A few days later, she was allowed to board her flight to Hong Kong, while others trying to get on the same plane were turned away as they didn’t have the proper paperwork.

Cutrera is proving to be one of the lucky ones, as many continue to be in limbo.

Lucy Parakhina, a 33-year-old Australian photographer, had decided to stay in London, where she has lived for two years.

But in June, she started to plan a return trip when her U.K. work visa expired. Though she managed to buy a one-way ticket from London to Sydney for less than 700 pounds ($922) with Qatar Airways, she was bumped from her flight and told it was postponed.

She already left her job in London and gave up her apartment, and won’t have income to stay in the U.K. beyond September. But with a virus resurgence in Australia showing no signs of ebbing and international flights down by 92% to the country, she’s likely stuck for a while.

“Now the only thing I can do is to wait for the easing policies and my flight to depart as planned,” she said.

from Blogger https://ift.tt/30CgSmQ via IFTTT

[teeky185]

On March 1, the day after the first coronavirus death in the United States, brothers Matt and Noah Colvin set out in a silver SUV to pick up some hand sanitizer. Driving around Chattanooga, Tennessee, they hit a Dollar Tree, then a Walmart, a Staples and a Home Depot. At each store, they cleaned out the shelves.Over the next three days, Noah Colvin took a 1,300-mile road trip across Tennessee and into Kentucky, filling a U-Haul truck with thousands of bottles of hand sanitizer and thousands of packs of antibacterial wipes, mostly from "little hole-in-the-wall dollar stores in the backwoods," his brother said. "The major metro areas were cleaned out."Matt Colvin stayed home near Chattanooga, preparing for pallets of even more wipes and sanitizer he had ordered, and starting to list them on Amazon. Colvin said he had posted 300 bottles of hand sanitizer and immediately sold them all for between $8 and $70 each, multiples higher than what he had bought them for. To him, "it was crazy money." To many others, it was profiteering from a pandemic.The next day, Amazon pulled his items and thousands of other listings for sanitizer, wipes and face masks. The company suspended some of the sellers behind the listings and warned many others that if they kept running up prices, they'd lose their accounts. EBay soon followed with even stricter measures, prohibiting any U.S. sales of masks or sanitizer.Now, while millions of people search in vain for hand sanitizer to protect themselves from the spread of the coronavirus, Colvin is sitting on 17,700 bottles of the stuff with little idea where to sell them."It's been a huge amount of whiplash," he said. "From being in a situation where what I've got coming and going could potentially put my family in a really good place financially to 'What the heck am I going to do with all of this?'"Colvin is one of probably thousands of sellers who have amassed stockpiles of hand sanitizer and crucial respirator masks that many hospitals are now rationing, according to interviews with eight Amazon sellers and posts in private Facebook and Telegram groups from dozens more. Amazon said it had recently removed hundreds of thousands of listings and suspended thousands of sellers' accounts for price gouging related to the coronavirus.Amazon, eBay, Walmart and other online-commerce platforms are trying to stop their sellers from making excessive profits from a public health crisis. While the companies aimed to discourage people from hoarding such products and jacking up their prices, many sellers had already cleared out their local stores and started selling the goods online.Now both the physical and digital shelves are nearly empty.Mikeala Kozlowski, a nurse in Dudley, Massachusetts, has been searching for hand sanitizer since before she gave birth to her first child, Nora, on March 5. When she searched stores, which were sold out, she skipped getting gas to avoid handling the pump. And when she checked Amazon, she couldn't find it for less than $50."You're being selfish, hoarding resources for your own personal gain," she said of the sellers.Sites like Amazon and eBay have given rise to a growing industry of independent sellers who snatch up discounted or hard-to-find items in stores to post online and sell around the world.These sellers call it retail arbitrage, a 21st-century career that has adults buying up everything from limited-run cereals to Fingerling Monkeys, a once hot toy. The bargain hunters look for anything they can sell at a sharp markup. In recent weeks, they found perhaps their biggest opportunity: a pandemic.As they watched the list of Amazon's most popular searches crowd with terms like "Purell," "N95 mask" and "Clorox wipes," sellers said, they did what they had learned to do: Suck up supply and sell it for what the market would bear.Initially, the strategy worked. For several weeks, prices soared for some of the top results to searches for sanitizer, masks and wipes on Amazon, according to a New York Times analysis of historical prices from Jungle Scout, which tracks data for Amazon sellers. The data shows that both Amazon and third-party sellers like Colvin increased their prices, which then mostly dropped when Amazon took action against price gouging this month.At the high prices, people still bought the products en masse, and Amazon took a cut of roughly 15% and eBay roughly 10%, depending on the price and the seller.Then the companies, pressured by growing criticism from regulators and customers, cracked down. After the measures last week, Amazon went further Wednesday, restricting sales of any coronavirus-related products from certain sellers."Price gouging is a clear violation of our policies, unethical, and in some areas, illegal," Amazon said in a statement. "In addition to terminating these third party accounts, we welcome the opportunity to work directly with states attorneys general to prosecute bad actors."Colvin, 36, a former Air Force technical sergeant, said he started selling on Amazon in 2015, developing it into a six-figure career by selling Nike shoes and pet toys, and by following trends.In early February, as headlines announced the coronavirus' spread in China, Colvin spotted a chance to capitalize. A nearby liquidation firm was selling 2,000 "pandemic packs," leftovers from a defunct company. Each came with 50 face masks, four small bottles of hand sanitizer and a thermometer. The price was $5 a pack. Colvin haggled it to $3.50 and bought them all.He quickly sold all 2,000 of the 50-packs of masks on eBay, pricing them from $40 to $50 each, and sometimes higher. He declined to disclose his profit on the record but said it was substantial.The success stoked his appetite. When he saw the panicked public starting to pounce on sanitizer and wipes, he and his brother set out to stock up.Elsewhere, other Amazon sellers were doing the same.Chris Anderson, an Amazon seller in central Pennsylvania, said he and a friend had driven around Ohio, buying about 10,000 masks from stores. He used coupons to buy packs of 10 for around $15 each and resold them for $40 to $50. After Amazon's cut and other costs, he estimates, he made a $25,000 profit.Anderson is now holding 500 packs of antibacterial wipes after Amazon blocked him from selling them for $19 each, up from $16 weeks earlier. He bought the packs for $3 each.Eric, a truck driver from Ohio who spoke on condition that his surname not be published because he feared Amazon would retaliate, said he had also collected about 10,000 masks at stores. He bought each 10-pack for about $20 and sold most for roughly $80 each, although some he priced at $125."Even at $125 a box, they were selling almost instantly," he said. "It was mind-blowing as far as what you could charge."He estimates he made $35,000 to $40,000 in profit.Now he has 1,000 more masks on order, but he's not sure what to do with them. He said Amazon had been vague about what constituted price gouging, scaring away sellers who don't want to risk losing their ability to sell on its site.To regulators and many others, the sellers are sitting on a stockpile of medical supplies during a pandemic. The attorney general's offices in California, Washington and New York are all investigating price gouging related to the coronavirus. California's price-gouging law bars sellers from increasing prices by more than 10 percent after officials declare an emergency. New York's law prohibits sellers from charging an "unconscionably excessive price" during emergencies.An official at the Washington attorney general's office said the agency believed it could apply the state's consumer-protection law to sue platforms or sellers, even if they aren't in Washington, as long as they were trying to sell to Washington residents.Colvin does not believe he was price gouging. While he charged $20 on Amazon for two bottles of Purell that retail for $1 each, he said people forget that his price includes his labor, Amazon's fees and about $10 in shipping. (Alcohol-based sanitizer is pricey to ship because officials consider it a hazardous material.)Current price-gouging laws "are not built for today's day and age," Colvin said. "They're built for Billy Bob's gas station doubling the amount he charges for gas during a hurricane."He added, "Just because it cost me $2 in the store doesn't mean it's not going to cost me $16 to get it to your door."But what about the morality of hoarding products that can prevent the spread of the virus, just to turn a profit?Colvin said he was simply fixing "inefficiencies in the marketplace." Some areas of the country need these products more than others, and he's helping send the supply toward the demand."There's a crushing overwhelming demand in certain cities right now," he said. "The Dollar General in the middle of nowhere outside of Lexington, Kentucky, doesn't have that."He thought about it more."I honestly feel like it's a public service," he added. "I'm being paid for my public service."As for his stockpile, Colvin said he would now probably try to sell it locally."If I can make a slight profit, that's fine," he said. "But I'm not looking to be in a situation where I make the front page of the news for being that guy who hoarded 20,000 bottles of sanitizer that I'm selling for 20 times what they cost me."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2IQgoQk

[deniscollins]

He Has 17,700 Bottles of Hand Sanitizer and Nowhere to Sell Them

During a pandemic, would you drive 1,300 miles over three days to fill a U-Haul truck with thousands of hand sanitizers and then sell them to the highest bidders on EBay and high prices on Amazon.com: (1) Yes, (2) No? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

If after having done so, what would you do if after a few days Amazon and EBay banned you from doing so because you were profitting from a health crisis and you still have 17,700 bottles of hand sanitizers: (1) find other ways to sell them, (2) be content with your monopoly profits to date and donate them, (3) something else, if so what?  Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

On March 1, the day after the first coronavirus death in the United States was announced, brothers Matt and Noah Colvin set out in a silver S.U.V. to pick up some hand sanitizer. Driving around Chattanooga, Tenn., they hit a Dollar Tree, then a Walmart, a Staples and a Home Depot. At each store, they cleaned out the shelves.

Over the next three days, Noah Colvin took a 1,300-mile road trip across Tennessee and into Kentucky, filling a U-Haul truck with thousands of bottles of hand sanitizer and thousands of packs of antibacterial wipes, mostly from “little hole-in-the-wall dollar stores in the backwoods,” his brother said. “The major metro areas were cleaned out.”

Matt Colvin stayed home near Chattanooga, preparing for pallets of even more wipes and sanitizer he had ordered, and starting to list them on Amazon. Mr. Colvin said he had posted 300 bottles of hand sanitizer and immediately sold them all for between $8 and $70 each, multiples higher than what he had bought them for. To him, “it was crazy money.” To many others, it was profiteering from a pandemic..

The next day, Amazon pulled his items and thousands of other listings for sanitizer, wipes and face masks. The company suspended some of the sellers behind the listings and warned many others that if they kept running up prices, they’d lose their accounts. EBay soon followed with even stricter measures, prohibiting any U.S. sales of masks or sanitizer.

Now, while millions of people across the country search in vain for hand sanitizer to protect themselves from the spread of the coronavirus, Mr. Colvin is sitting on 17,700 bottles of the stuff with little idea where to sell them.

“It’s been a huge amount of whiplash,” he said. “From being in a situation where what I’ve got coming and going could potentially put my family in a really good place financially to ‘What the heck am I going to do with all of this?’”

Mr. Colvin is one of probably thousands of sellers who have amassed stockpiles of hand sanitizer and crucial respirator masks that many hospitals are now rationing, according to interviews with eight Amazon sellers and posts in private Facebook and Telegram groups from dozens more. Amazon said it had recently removed hundreds of thousands of listings and suspended thousands of sellers’ accounts for price gouging related to the coronavirus.

Amazon, eBay, Walmart and other online-commerce platforms are trying to stop their sellers from making excessive profits from a public health crisis. While the companies aimed to discourage people from hoarding such products and jacking up their prices, many sellers had already cleared out their local stores and started selling the goods online.

Now both the physical and digital shelves are nearly empty.

Mikeala Kozlowski, a nurse in Dudley, Mass., has been searching for hand sanitizer since before she gave birth to her first child, Nora, on March 5. When she searched stores, which were sold out, she skipped getting gas to avoid handling the pump. And when she checked Amazon, she couldn’t find it for less than $50.

Get an informed guide to the global outbreak with our daily coronavirus newsletter.

“You’re being selfish, hoarding resources for your own personal gain,” she said of the sellers.

Sites like Amazon and eBay have given rise to a growing industry of independent sellers who snatch up discounted or hard-to-find items in stores to post online and sell around the world.

These sellers call it retail arbitrage, a 21st-century career that has adults buying up everything from limited-run cereals to Fingerling Monkeys, a once hot toy. The bargain hunters look for anything they can sell at a sharp markup. In recent weeks, they found perhaps their biggest opportunity: a pandemic.

As they watched the list of Amazon’s most popular searches crowd with terms like “Purell,” “N95 mask” and “Clorox wipes,” sellers said, they did what they had learned to do: Suck up supply and sell it for what the market would bear.

Initially, the strategy worked. For several weeks, prices soared for some of the top results to searches for sanitizer, masks and wipes on Amazon, according to a New York Times analysis of historical prices from Jungle Scout, which tracks data for Amazon sellers. The data shows that both Amazon and third-party sellers like Mr. Colvin increased their prices, which then mostly dropped when Amazon took action against price gouging this month.

At the high prices, people still bought the products en masse, and Amazon took a cut of roughly 15 percent and eBay roughly 10 percent, depending on the price and the seller.

Then the companies, pressured by growing criticism from regulators and customers, cracked down. After the measures last week, Amazon went further on Wednesday, restricting sales of any coronavirus-related products from certain sellers.

“Price gouging is a clear violation of our policies, unethical, and in some areas, illegal,” Amazon said in a statement. “In addition to terminating these third party accounts, we welcome the opportunity to work directly with states attorneys general to prosecute bad actors.”

Mr. Colvin, 36, a former Air Force technical sergeant, said he started selling on Amazon in 2015, developing it into a six-figure career by selling Nike shoes and pet toys, and by following trends.

In early February, as headlines announced the coronavirus’s spread in China, Mr. Colvin spotted a chance to capitalize. A nearby liquidation firm was selling 2,000 “pandemic packs,” leftovers from a defunct company. Each came with 50 face masks, four small bottles of hand sanitizer and a thermometer. The price was $5 a pack. Mr. Colvin haggled it to $3.50 and bought them all.

He quickly sold all 2,000 of the 50-packs of masks on eBay, pricing them from $40 to $50 each, and sometimes higher. He declined to disclose his profit on the record but said it was substantial.

The success stoked his appetite. When he saw the panicked public starting to pounce on sanitizer and wipes, he and his brother set out to stock up.

Elsewhere in the country, other Amazon sellers were doing the same.

Chris Anderson, an Amazon seller in central Pennsylvania, said he and a friend had driven around Ohio, buying about 10,000 masks from stores. He used coupons to buy packs of 10 for around $15 each and resold them for $40 to $50. After Amazon’s cut and other costs, he estimates, he made a $25,000 profit.

Mr. Anderson is now holding 500 packs of antibacterial wipes after Amazon blocked him from selling them for $19 each, up from $16 weeks earlier. He bought the packs for $3 each.

Eric, a truck driver from Ohio who spoke on the condition that his surname not be published because he feared Amazon would retaliate, said he had also collected about 10,000 masks at stores. He bought each 10-pack for about $20 and sold most for roughly $80 each, though some he priced at $125.

“Even at $125 a box, they were selling almost instantly,” he said. “It was mind-blowing as far as what you could charge.” He estimates he made $35,000 to $40,000 in profit.

Now he has 1,000 more masks on order, but he’s not sure what to do with them. He said Amazon had been vague about what constituted price gouging, scaring away sellers who don’t want to risk losing their ability to sell on its site.

To regulators and many others, the sellers are sitting on a stockpile of medical supplies during a pandemic. The attorney general’s offices in California, Washington and New York are all investigating price gouging related to the coronavirus. California’s price-gouging law bars sellers from increasing prices by more than 10 percent after officials declare an emergency. New York’s law prohibits sellers from charging an “unconscionably excessive price” during emergencies.

An official at the Washington attorney general’s office said the agency believed it could apply the state’s consumer-protection law to sue platforms or sellers, even if they aren’t in Washington, as long as they were trying to sell to Washington residents.

Tennessee, where Mr. Colvin lives, has a price-gouging law that bars people from charging “unreasonable prices for essential goods and services, including gasoline, in direct response to a disaster,” according to a state website. On Saturday, after the The Times published this article, the Tennessee attorney general’s office said it had sent investigators to Mr. Colvin’s home, given him a cease-and-desist letter and was now investigating his case.

Mr. Colvin does not believe he was price gouging. While he charged $20 on Amazon for two bottles of Purell that retail for $1 each, he said people forget that his price includes his labor, Amazon’s fees and about $10 in shipping. (Alcohol-based sanitizer is pricey to ship because officials consider it a hazardous material.)

Current price-gouging laws “are not built for today’s day and age,” Mr. Colvin said. “They’re built for Billy Bob’s gas station doubling the amount he charges for gas during a hurricane.”

He added, “Just because it cost me $2 in the store doesn’t mean it’s not going to cost me $16 to get it to your door.”

But what about the morality of hoarding products that can prevent the spread of the virus, just to turn a profit?

Mr. Colvin said he was simply fixing “inefficiencies in the marketplace.” Some areas of the country need these products more than others, and he’s helping send the supply toward the demand.

“There’s a crushing overwhelming demand in certain cities right now,” he said. “The Dollar General in the middle of nowhere outside of Lexington, Ky., doesn’t have that.”

He thought about it more. “I honestly feel like it’s a public service,” he added. “I’m being paid for my public service.”

As for his stockpile, Mr. Colvin said he would now probably try to sell it locally. “If I can make a slight profit, that’s fine,” he said. “But I’m not looking to be in a situation where I make the front page of the news for being that guy who hoarded 20,000 bottles of sanitizer that I’m selling for 20 times what they cost me.”

After The Times published this article on Saturday morning, Mr. Colvin said he was exploring ways to donate all the supplies.

[be-conceptual-eyes-blog]

CREATIVE MARKETING CASE STUDY: THE INSPIRATION FROM CITIES

Early in the spring this year, Coca Cola China has tried new twist on marketing strategy “Share a Coke” which has been brought to over 80 countries and made the huge buzz in both terms of media impact and trade effect since first launch in 2011.  When “Share a Coke” started in Australia in 2011, the campaign focused on placing common first names on the label so people would snatch up bottles bearing their names and friends’ names. China followed the idea in 2013, yet used popular online nicknames like “Superstar” or “Dreamer” to tap into China’s media-savvy young generation instead of using real names. Continuing campaign success, customized bottles with song lyrics appeared a year later. Then, as movie trend boomed in 2015, the campaign was all about famous films and TV quotes replaced brand name on bottles.

This spring, to iterate the popular campaign, Chinese customers can have customized Coke sleek can inspired by traditionally cultural value which is one of the most effective material to do branding in this most populated market. China is a vast country with many megacities varied in manners an customs. Different cities regconized by thier distinctive charms in geographic condition, life style, people, food or infrastructure has coloured a stunning picture about China whose heart and soul lies in the cultural attributes of each place. Everyone has their own city that they fall in love with, it can be a person’s hometown sticked to thier childhood, a current city of habitation where their daily lives circulate within or someplace that people have not ever been but exists in them a desire to visit.

 “The uniqueness of China’s cities has become a big talking point amongst Chinese youth, who are moving between cities more than ever. They want to stay connected to their roots, as well as forging new connections to the places they move to,” said Cia Hatzi, chief client officer for McCann Worldgroup APAC.

 Coca-Cola is launching a series of 23 limited edition cans celebrating the distinct faces of city in China. 23 city themed design featuring thier unique icons and descriptions mixing it with modern and stylish sense of art, Coca-Cola can help you to get closer to these cities that touch your soul and at the other extreme, let you touch their souls. The can designs are visually captivating because some details are obvious, and others discoverable upon a second glance.

“No matter where we grow up, where we go to university or where our careers take us, each city that we live in leaves an impression that is embedded in us forever. Each has its own culture and flavor, its sights and sounds. But above all, cities are made of people. While we may live in a city, it’s the city that also lives in us,” said Richard Cotton, head of content, creative & design, Coca-Cola Greater China & Korea.

 For example, a Delectable Guangzhou is known for its delicious food, so that the icon comes up with modern girl donning the hat with bamboo steamer with buns. A Stylish Shanghai with unstoppable pursuit of trend. Whether it is a group of passers-by or a typical bourgeoisie who enjoying a cup of afternoon tea on Nanjing West road, they all dressed up in a trailblazingly fashionable outfits.

As a part of the camapign, a short TVC  is released to take people on a journey across 3 signature cities of China namely Beijing, Chengdu and Shanghai communicated a sense of what gives each location a unique flavor. The endorsement with one of the most popular influencer in China, Luhan with his huge teenager fan base which is counted as productive source of taget consumer, this cooperation has helped boost product sales as long as the TVC launched. In addition, Coca- Cola theme song “Taste the feeling” is also locally remade to adapt to new approach “Taste the feeling of cities”.

Besides TVC celebrating city cultures, the campaign also includes print billboards and a partnership with Baidu to create an augmented reality experience to allow customers to interact with product and packaging in interesting and engaging way. The opportunity for experience opens within 1-month duration from March 12 to April 16, offers customers the chance to scan the special animations on the can using Baidu app to unlock the city’s hidden charms to closely explore and understand its characteristic and temperament.

With the same purpose of previous campaigns, this twist is credited with boosting sales. There have not been specific number indicating sale volumes, however, it is inferred that Coca Cola would be experiencing significant breakthough in product consumption due to the fact that young consumer group has risen dramatically in the past 2 years. Further, there is a shift in consumption behaviour among these target group proven by the psychological insight that young people is constantly looking for changes in their perception of happiness. They are no longer sensitive to price. “Money can buy us happiness” has become the point of view of most new generation consumers.

This innovative approach of Coca-Cola attracted a lot of attention as soon as it was launched. In terms of media partnership, Weibo and Wechat plays critical roles of multiplying campaign’s magnitude in scale as in China, these 2 names are considered top-of-mind active platforms. The media performance analytics in solely 2 middle weeks of the campaign from March 24 to April 7 showed impressive numbers. Along with a support from massive engagment of wide range of fashion and travel bloggers, brand mentions have spiked as much as 504% on social media as many people are excited gto  to express thier love over favorite cities captured on the can with hashtag #Coca-Cola City Can on Weibo and Wechat.

In summary, Coca Cola x City is a marketing campaign successfuly run based on profound insight of cultural value that has strong impact on emotional buying behaviour. Innovative approach has helped China stand out in current harsh competition in drink segment. The campaign offers personalized touch an customized sense of experience to that effectively enhances customer advocacy, then maximizes brand image.

 Sticking to the same strategy motto “Share happiness”, yet previous campaign focuses on personal experience in terms personal identity, hobby, this time Coca Cola tells bigger story using nation pride as the fulcrum that generates promotion for the cities, thus evokes brand love.

 Vietnam and China does not see big gap in cultural differences, hence lesson learned here is the applicability of the same innovative way to interweave brands’ core value with cultural context into local projects in future. Vietnam diversity and distinctiveness of regional values in combination with available technology base like Zalo can be a perfect duet of maketing catalyst to make the same effect for any brands in need.

[deblambe1505811-blog]

3 Most Wished Tips For Effective Social network Advertising and marketing Through Jonathan Macintosh

Through the advertising and marketing tactics being actually applied in the social networking websites, companies can observe how their items is being actually gotten by the social and how it could affect its own potential consumers via the technologies being actually made use of to carry out analysis. Our experts supply all digital marketing services including internet site design, material monitoring devices, ecommerce systems, internet applications, i-phone apps, bespoke program progression, holding, email marketing, virus-like video games, internet search engine optimization, social media advertising and marketing, ppc advertising and marketing, associate advertising, flash computer animation, electronic marketing working as a consultant as well as marketing and printing design.

While any sort of social networks network will certainly be actually a very valuable device in your firm's incoming marketing method, there are a couple of broad styles you need to recognize. The type of social media solutions your firm will definitely would like to use depends on the depth from your brand name message and also the demographics of the group being targeted. Social media site systems could leverage the collective knowledge from the area to team up on a given purpose, such as; to raise sales, make content, interact customer reviews, nurture a neighborhood, enhance your marketing information, and to establish colleague relationships in between manufacturer-distributor-retailer-partner-customer. Facebook is actually the leviathan when it pertains to social media sites ad earnings, bringing in much more than $7 billion last year - 80% which originated from mobile phone adds Facebook's Updates Feed mathematical adjustments today focus on information from friends and family initially, so the 75% of labels on Facebook that pay for to advertise adds will need to obtain creative and also concept aesthetic, stimulating adds to obtain noticed first. Social media site marketing firms have actually assisted lots of people certainly not just promote their item and also market on the internet yet also possess aid them identify the very best networks within the web to concentrate on. They also help all of them produce the best formula as well as strategies to utilize and also effective ways to consider so as to stay up to date with the altering trends of the international internet market, while keep their website on top of the internet search engine. Advertising has gone a prolonged method as well as it is actually certainly not remaining revolutionized because of the Internet. Some of the best crucial components of Social network Advertising is actually keeping top of our online reputation. Long as customer review copies might be delivered to conventional media outlets like newspapers as well as publications, they can likewise be actually sent out to popular blog posts on the subject matter. People are actually pushed for opportunity nowadays as well as material can be difficult, thus create this effortless and also beneficial to check out. You may also make use of social networking sites as a tool for connecting with complementary, non-competing organisations, presumed forerunners as well as tastemakers in your area, in addition to writers that cover your industry. Firms and organisations must right now have a social networking sites approach, starting along with the big 4: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. Neal Schaffer is actually head of state from Maximize Your Social, writer from Maximizing LinkedIn available as well as Social network Advertising and marketing: Comprehending, Optimizing as well as leveraging LinkedIn. Without marketing your business on social networking sites, your incoming website traffic is actually confined to your standard consumers. Due to the fact that your brand does not truly exist online if you're not exemplified across all social channels - and on a regular basis interacting with your followers, journalists who cover your business, believed tastemakers as well as leaders, and so on Along with our assistance, our team will decrease the complication through carefully describing the conveniences of utilization social networks to market your organisation. Social networking site sites enable online marketers to employ a vast range of strategies and approaches to ensure material. To address your second (wonderful) question, they key is possessing units that combine your information procedure along with your advertising and marketing automation procedure. If you devote all your time on the social Internet straight promoting your solutions and products, people will cease listening. These art-world crowdcultures are actually the major reason why branded material has actually fallen short. This natural approach requires time as developing content and expanding people on social networking sites is an adventure rather than a stopgap. Our software program as well as services assist organisations and also companies have the guess work from pay-per-click advertising so you acquire much more coming from your advertising and marketing budget. As you prepare your targets for 2013, don't forget these important social networking sites tactics for your business. Contact Internet Click India at: 8750587506, leading Search Engine Optimisation Business in Delhi gives economical social networks advertising companies to its own worldwide customers. Virus-like Marketing Strategies - guide to acquiring large traffic spikes through taking advantage of other social stations as well as on the best ways to make the best out of those gained traffic. Our team will also pinpoint where folks are referring to you as well as help you reply to client concerns on social stations. Uploading online video material on YouTube is an one-of-a-kind possibility to boost your role in Google.com's global search results. Obviously, if you're certainly not using social networks advertising currently, you'll have to learn that - or even shed over time. In by gone opportunities, social work was present through charity as well as it slowly grew. On the other hand, Universal setup a mini website for writers and the media to identify more info on the playground's brand-new destination. There are a variety of actions that can be taken in purchase to prevent the aforementioned social media calamities that occur frequently in today's on the web marketplace. Ric Dragon, founder and Chief Executive Officer of DragonSearch, author from Social Marketology and DragonSearch Online Marketing Manual. There is actually a very really good chance you will definitely be actually very soon if you're one which doesn't presently take advantage of social media or even possibly doesn't know this. Though the subconsciousness motivation is survival, the aware feelings are social. Message Unique Material: Some of the most basic methods to gain this approach is by publishing good-quality content that aids to preserve the rate of interest from existing consumer as well as snatch the focus of brand new site visitors on your internet site. TRUST FUND: Content Democratization: Our experts are actually migrating from press advertising and marketing to draw; enabling individuals better accessibility, command, and engagement based upon leave In the event you liked this informative article in addition to you would want to acquire more info concerning yellow pages residential search uk (belezaesaude88.info) kindly go to our webpage. .

[stagesofabreakup]

Stages of a Breakup: Week 41

1. Eat macaroni and cheese out of the trash

2. Your roommate keeps throwing away perfectly good food, even though you’ve told her to let you know if she doesn’t want it because you’re very poor right now and you’ll eat it

3. She doesn’t, so you have been taking stuff out of the trash and eating it

4. Set an alarm to wake up early because you’re supposed to go into work early before a party you’re working tonight

5. Your boss emails you telling you they don’t need you

6. Feel like this isn’t good and worry you’re going to be fired

7. Watch lots of episodes of The Office

8. Make a fake Top 9 end of the year Instagram post in photoshop that’s all dead birds

9. It doesn’t do as well as you think it should

10. Go to the gym

11. Buy a Jamaican beef patty and whole pizza because you have no groceries at your house

12. Don’t shower

13. Think about going to a mic

14. Masturbate

15. Start drinking at 1:30am by yourself

16. Feel excited then sad

17. Miss your friends from New Orleans

18. Finish a jar of Nutella that was mostly done already

19. Eat more pizza

20. Steal a glass of wine from a bottle in the living room that’s been open on the bar forever

21. Close the laptop around 4:30am

22. Go to a friend’s recording of their half hour

23. Be the only audience member

24. Go to a show with her afterwards

25. Eat a free half of a cheeseburger and fries with very good pickles

26. See a guy who was the white guy on the Real World sketch on Chappelle’s Show

27. Be starstruck!!!

28. See a famous-ish person you know struggle to have a good set

29. Feel comforted in that knowledge

30. Walk home

31. Check your phone bleary-eyed at 9:00am when you wake up

32. See a tweet where your ex-boyfriend refers to someone as his girlfriend

33. Wake up

34. Cry

35. Feel completely overwhelmed

36. Call your mom even though you have kind of been avoiding her since your fight

37. Cry and cry

38. Feel better

39. Go to work

40. Watch Stick It and The Bone Collector on someone’s HBO Go that was logged into your work computer

41. Library

42. Gym?

43. Work again

44. College theatre alum drinks meetup

45. Hear people caroling inside

46. Get a free beer and shot from the owner of the bar

47. Break a pepper shaker

48. Find out your ex-boyfriend is really dating someone new, it’s not just an easy way to refer to the girl he was hooking up with when you were in an open relationship

49. Decide not to get the name/stalk

50. Lose respect for him

51. Feel bad for her

52. Unless she’s prettier than you & you will just hate her

53. Cry cry cry

54. Talk on the phone with a friend while you’re texting a different friend at the same time

55. Be comforted by women

56. Feel ok

57. Sleep

58. Take a bus to Boston for a surprise party for a friend!!!!

59. Try to draw on the bus but it’s very bumpy

60. Text

61. Watch fb videos for over an hour

62. Be 45 minutes late

63. BOSTON!!!!!

64. You haven’t been back here since you were in college?

65. See a BEAUTIFUL huge fat pink Christmas tree at Macy’s

66. TAKE THE T!!!!!!

67. Sit next to a man you would like to talk to but don’t

68. Walk 13 minutes in the freezing cold because you missed a bus

69. SEE YOUR FRIENDS

70. Uber to the restaurant immediately because you have a reservation

71. Go to a fancy French dinner with them that they PAY FOR

72. Eat bone marrow for the first time

73. Have underwhelming salmon

74. But overwhelming bread!!!

75. Almost take a shot of whiskey out of the bone marrow bone, decide not to be a caricature of yourself

76. Get invited to Christmas with your friend John’s family

77. Feel happy and grateful and touched

78. Talk too much about yourself

79. Remember things

80. Feel good

81. Take the T back to their apartment

82. TWO of their friends (different) get engaged that night

83. They get a text from your college ex-boyfriend saying he won’t be able to make it to the party tomorrow

84. Feel quietly disappointed

85. Learn who Shea Serrano is

86. Read a little of his book about Basketball

87. Like it/him a lot

88. Use a fancy skin cream/oil

89. Sleep

90. Watch an episode of The Sopranos!!!!! Which you forgot about!!!!

91. Paint your nails all different colors

92. Go get vegan tacos with your friend John

93. Talk about a lot of things

94. He pays for them, which is the kindest thing in the whole world

95. Eat

96. Your friend gets the text, “Do you think you’ve already Vanilla Sky’d yourself?” during lunch from your college ex-boyfriend that makes you remember how funny and unique he is

97. Find out he has a twitter

98. Memorize the handle for later

99. Help prep for party

100. Go to surprise party house

101. Help prep for party

102. Hang streamers and tie balloons to chairs and make a Cheeto bar and custom signs for custom drinks at the whiskey station

103. See a close friend you had a falling out with but then it was ok but it’s still a little weird but feels like it could be good

104. SURPRISE

105. Have fun at the party

106. Eat a million delicious things, mostly turkey pesto wraps and Buffalo Chicken dip

107. Drink maybe 3 whiskey gingers

108. Buy a bus ticket for 2:15am that night because you have to be at work in like 15 hours

109. Dance

110. Hear a Kate Nash song about birds that’s oddly fun and insightful and sweet

111. Leave party

112. Talk with friends at home for a while

113. Ask if they think your college ex-bf is mad at you

114. They don’t think so?

115. Light Hanukkah candles

116. They go to sleep

117. Do dishes

118. Pack

119. Write in journal

120. Call Uber

121. Get on bus

122. Try to sleep

123. Get woken up by someone’s KPop ringtone that is SO LOUD and goes on for MINUTES before you have to WAKE THIS GIRL UP so she can turn off her fucking phone

124. Be grumpy

125. Look through your college ex-boyfriend’s entire twitter

126. Feel some type of way

127. Wish you guys could be friends/that he was at the party

128. Sleep maybe 2 hours

129. Get into NY at 9:00am

130. See a woman LOSING HER SHIT at the bus agents because she missed her bus and they didn’t help her

131. Stay in the subway station for an hour because it’s warm and you can’t go to work yet

132. Go to work

133. Work

134. Feel ok

135. Get 18 dollars in tips, lead 2 groups

136. Go home

137. Eat

138. Fall asleep at 7:00pm

139. Wake up at 11:30pm

140. Be on your phone

141. Watch Snatched

142. Eh

143. Sleep

[nofomoartworld]

Shanzhai Archeology: defying our standardized technological imagination

DISNOVATION.ORG (With Clément Renaud & Yuan Qu), Shanzhai Archeology. Photo : Sébastien Moitrot

Shanzhai Archeology – Research Database – beta. Photo: DISNOVATION.ORG

Over the past couple of years, Maria Roszkowska, Clément Renaud and Nicolas Maigret from DISNOVATION.ORG have been quietly smuggling odd-looking phones from China to Europe. They’ve got a phone that doubles up as a stun gun, one that’s shaped like a big strawberry, one you can use to light up your cigarette, one that will assist you in your religious rituals, etc.

These bizarre devices belong to the shanzhai production. They are counterfeit consumer goods, sold at lower prices and boasting multifunctional performances.

There’s a lot to admire about them though. First, they were designed to respond to very specific market needs. Second, they are hybrid products that emerge directly from the technological cross-breeding of the Made in China. These odd-looking artifacts question the hyper-normalised western technological imaginary and challenge the monopoly of our black touch-screen rectangles.

Shanzhai Archeology is an experimental research project that uses shanzhai as the starting point for a critical reflection on the normalization process of Occidental technological imaginations.

After a preliminary research on the industrial and political history of the shanzhai (see The Pirate Book), the members of DISNOVATION.ORG have been building up a collection of some 60 hybrid phones. About half of them were exhibited at the Mapping festival which took place a few weeks ago in Geneva. That’s where i started to talk with some of the members of DISNOVATION.ORG….

Shanzhai Archeology – Research Database – beta. Photo: DISNOVATION.ORG

Hi Maria, Nicolas and Clément! How did you go about hunting for those curious handsets? And then how did you manage to ship them to Europe where they are illegal?

For 3 years, we’ve been collecting rare devices online (mostly on Taobao and Alibaba) and in underground Chinese malls. We then stored them at Clement’s and Yuan family in Qingdao, China. The tricky part started when we had a show in France (for the Biennale Internationale Design of Saint-Etienne), and we had only a few months to bring all the phones from China to Europe where they cannot be legally imported. Many phones feature copies of brand names (SVMSMVG, MORIOROIA), sometimes of multiple brands (PCRSEHE and PORSCHE on the same phone). Most of them would never pass EU, UK or USA safety or branding requirements. They are simply not allowed go through customs. You can actually purchase stickers to pretend they are compliant with the rules, but this is probably not a good idea :)

Shanzhai Archeology, Stickers collection, 2015

Besides, since April 1, 2016 you’re not supposed to travel with lithium-ion batteries, shipping them overseas from China is now forbidden. We thus had to spend hours on the phone with border control, trade administration offices, customs, and various mail services in both countries. Basically, no official solution exists for electronics traveling as artworks. You’re just not supposed to carry a non-compliant device anywhere in Europe or USA. In the end, we did everything illegally / a-legally. We transported them one by one in planes, we asked family and friends to smuggle them, we had them shipped in slow Chinese post parcels, or broken down into parts and without battery in DHL parcels. So far, we’ve received 80 to 90% of our collection. We also learned a lot about the customs system in the process.

Shanzhai Archeology. Photo: DISNOVATION.ORG

Shanzhai Archeology – Research Database – beta. Photo: DISNOVATION.ORG

Could you tell us about some of these curious models?

For the Shanzhai Archeology research, we identified a series of phones manufactured in Shenzhen. Each of them combines several functions. They are hybrid objects that reflect very specific uses and are accompanied by stories and narratives.

The Buddha Phone is presented like a “virtual prayer room” – it is equipped with a touch that loads a kind of private, virtual and customizable altar. It is supposed to help Buddhists perform their rituals when they are away from home. You can simulate the burning of incense, replicate purification rites or play music to help you meditate wherever you are.

The Sound System Phone: China has a long tradition of phone for pensioners. The buttons are bigger, the sound is louder and it offers shortcuts for “sonny”, “daughter-in-law”, etc. One of pensioners’ favourite activities (along with mahjong) consists in dancing on public squares. It’s called guangchang wu. The sound system phone was conceived to broadcast loud sound outdoors. It integrates a small support to make it stand in front of the dancers. It also comes with several gigabytes of old-fashioned communist songs that Chinese pensioners are particularly keen on. The dances usually take place in the evening, in small rural villages which often lack street lighting. The phone thus features a powerful torch to ensure a smooth return home after the dance.

Square dance in a Chinese village

The Power Bank Phone: Ghana is currently going through a major power grid crisis: blackouts in the city can last for 36 hours on end. As a result, a significant business activity has grown around the sale of portable USB chargers that can charge electronic devices or even power bulbs. The Power Bank Phone, designed for this particular market, combines a 10000 Mh USB charger, an LED flashlight, and 3 sim card slots to connect the entire family or to take advantage of promotions offered by different operators.

DISNOVATION.ORG (With Clément Renaud & Yuan Qu), Shanzhai Archeology. Photo: DISNOVATION.ORG

The Prisoner Phone: marketed as “the smallest in the world”, this phone is made of 99% plastic, meaning that it will be barely detectable during checks in prison, it is easy to conceal and transport, especially via drones or carrier pigeons. It is also equipped with a “voice changer”.

The Taser Phone: marketed as a self-defense weapon, especially in case of snatching, the taser-phone is illegal in many countries. It is routinely seized at French customs.

DISNOVATION.ORG (With Clément Renaud & Yuan Qu), Shanzhai Archeology. Photo : Sébastien Moitrot

Does the little booth you built to display the phones echo the ones you saw in China?

Yes, the kiosk compiles distinctive elements we spotted in Shenzhen, Shanghai and Hong-Kong. For Shanzhai Archeology, we wanted to insert these telecommunication devices into their original context. Our inspiration were street vendors as well as the ‘malls’, those gigantic covered marketplaces where you can find small shops selling phones, gadgets and electronic components. We also kept a record of the names of the shops, in particular the ones where we bought the phones. This kiosk is called 手机百货 (shouji baihuo), a name used by hundreds of shops in China. Its very standard aspect and the adoption of common brands is a nod: we copy what works. One of the main inspirations for this booth is the Huaqiangbei hub in Shenzhen where you can buy most of the electronic accessories that are shipped from China to be exported. Huaqiangbei counts several thousands phone booths. However, you can find a smaller version of this type of hub in other Chinese cities. We are only presenting one of them, as a conservation copy.

DISNOVATION.ORG (With Clément Renaud & Yuan Qu), Shanzhai Archeology. Photo: Sébastien Moitrot

Shanzhai Archeology – Research Database – beta. Photo: DISNOVATION.ORG

And finally what made Shenzhen such a relevant city to investigate for the project?

It is the geographical area where most of the world electronics are produced and assembled.

We focused on the “phone” object as it plays a key role in the larger history of technological hybridization. More precisely, in the history of technological production that defies Western norms and standards. This project is an entry point to other technological imaginations, miles away from the black tactile rectangle (which has become the representation by default of the mobile phone).

Besides, Shenzhen is at the center of attention at the moment, it is THE place to buy electronics or get them manufactured. All kinds of “makers” and entrepreneurs flood the city. The place is changing very quickly, it is moving from the status of factory of the world to the one of world capital of design. The transformation of the city also involves the rewriting of its history, and more generally the history of the ‘Made in China’. Shanzhai products are gradually disappearing from the market, to be replaced by more standardized, more profitable, more globalized ones. In Shenzhen, the shanzhai has reached an almost mythical status, because of the role it played in the history of the city. We also need to keep in mind that the production of these weird phones involves a particularly complicated social reality, with farmers working in factories, often in objectionable conditions. We plan to resume this on-site survey before the Chinese industrial transition has completely erased all traces of this history and replaced it with a more homogenized discourse that focuses solely on design and on the iteration between product and market. With Shanzhai Archeology, we hope to capture and communicate the real history of the production of these hybrid objects.

Thanks Maria, Nicolas and Clément!

from We Make Money Not Art http://ift.tt/2rFgAdI via IFTTT

[coldstarlightharmony-blog]

Edge is stuck in an unfortunate situation: who will purchase the BlackBerry pie? With its piece of the overall industry sliding, BlackBerry producer Research In Motion is in deep.

BlackBerry creator Research In Motion is in profound, major dilemma. Shareholders are watching co-CEOs Balisillie and Lazaridis misuse an once-impenetrable lead in the cell phone wars, and they need a few changes. The organization is presently taking a gander at another administration structure, however that may be short of what was expected.

More uncommon measures appear to be all together. Would anyone need to purchase the organization? What's more, assuming this is the case, what might the purchaser get? How about we discover.

The time is correct

Ought to RIM be searching for purchasers by any means? All things considered, the organization is as yet developing both deals and benefits at a more than respectable pace. In financial year 2011, which finished in February, income was up by 33 percent year-over-year and profit bounced 47 percent. Numerous CEOs would offer their moms for numbers that way.

Be that as it may, in the handset wars, piece of the pie is everything. On that front, RIM isn't doing as such hot. Cell phone purchasers are overwhelmingly searching for iPhones and Androids. On the off chance that the clients aren't arranging for new BlackBerrys, then the systems think progressively less about supporting and promoting the stage, and the passing winding has started. Those delicious development numbers will definitely hand negative over the not so distant future unless RIM makes a move.

What's clinched?

On the off chance that RIM strikes an arrangement before the financials turn pear-formed, the organization can indicate phenomenal development insights while beating its bushy trunk like a Canadian logger and promising business as usual. Edge likewise has $2.4 billion of obligation free money available in addition to about $2.5 billion of net an incentive in its assembling offices. In light of current circumstances, the organization would be worth something like $10 billion or more buyout premium in a money bargain today. (Confounded by net money and offices cutting down the aggregate estimation of the organization? Consider it paying $100 for a wallet with a $20 charge inside. You truly just paid $80 for that wallet.)

Moving rapidly would be a smart thought. The further RIM's cell phone share slips, the littler the buyout premium progresses toward becoming. In late telecom history, Google offered a 63 percent close term premium for Motorola Mobility, and Level 3 Communications sweetened its Global Crossing bargain by 55 percent. On the off chance that the Canadians play their cards right, they may get it of that extent and everyone goes home upbeat.

A licensed system

Edge's super-sized patent portfolio would be one key reson for that hopeful valuation. In the present Mexican standoff atmosphere where anyone who is anyone is suing every other person, remote innovation licenses are justified regardless of their weight in plutonium. Edge itself participated in the offering for bankrupt Nortel's patent fortunes, and wound up on the triumphant side in an impossible coalition with Microsoft, Apple, Sony Ericsson, and portable crackpot (however capacity mammoth) EMC. So this organization knows how the amusement is played.

As per Evercore Partners expert Alkesh Shah, RIM is perched on more than 10,000 propelled remote innovation licenses, definitely enough for any possible kind of hostile or protective activity. Be that as it may, if RIM sits staring its in the face until the patent fights chill, or until the real players have loaded up on ammo somewhere else, the minute is lost.

Yet, hold up, there's additional!

Edge is something beyond a sack of licenses, obviously. There's a huge amount of history there's still an incentive in the CrackBerry mark name. A worldwide system of telephone plants is an interesting preferred standpoint as Apple and others have a tendency to depend on outsider makers like Foxconn or Flextronics. At that point there's the $200 million buy of the QNX microkernel OS, which didn't work ponders for the PlayBook however may have any kind of effect under new administration. Is it still worth $200 million? Difficult to state, however it's another resource for consider.

BlackBerry's long-lasting status as a superior supplier of secure correspondences is another offering point. The BlackBerry Enterprise Server middleware remains a main administration framework for versatile access to Microsoft Exchange and IBM's Lotus Notes or Domino frameworks. That capacity alone will keep the BlackBerry mark alive for quite a long time after the last puff of advancement leaves Waterloo, Ontario. The customer programming has been ported to Symbian, the old-school Palm stage, and to Windows Mobile 6; completing it on iOS, Android, as well as Windows Phone 7 would keep the servers alive.

The standard suspects

So who might need to pay something like $16 billion, net of RIM money and resources, for this charming yet blundered blend of licenses, equipment, history, and still-applicable programming?

One basic proposal is Microsoft. Redmond possesses a great deal of money and urgently needs to make a blemish on the versatile business. Also, the cooperative energy amongst Exchange and BES basically asks for a buyout. It just bodes well.

In any case, if Microsoft is purchasing anyone in the telephone business today, I'd anticipate that it will be Nokia. President Stephen Elop is a previous Microsoft VP who effectively rolled out immense system improvements toward Redmond. This adorable couple should get hitched as of now, and after that Microsoft would have little motivation to go polygamist on its submitted accomplice.

In like manner, Google just got its missing patent shield civility of Motorola Mobility and I don't see the organization putting resources into a moment portable stage. Also, how about we not drag Cupertino into the discourse—as rich as Apple seems to be, these organizations would go together like sheep slashes and chocolate chips.

Hewlett-Packard has its money submitted somewhere else as of now. The day that IBM gets into semi-customer deals by purchasing something like RIM is the day flying pigs obscure the skies over Cincinnatti. So who else is enormous and sufficiently rich to make the play, yet not as of now too far down an alternate street to make the move?

The genuine contender

Gone ahead down, Oracle! Here's the reason:

Larry Ellison cherishes development by obtaining and hasn't made a major, splashy arrangement since the Sun buyout nearly 19 months back. His trigger finger must tingle for activity at this point.

Officially involved in fights in court with Google over Android, RIM's licenses would give him crisp shots to fling in the general heading of Mountain View.

Prophet and undertaking inviting organizations go together like nutty spread and Nutella. Under Oracle, RIM would disregard the shopper showcase and refocus on unadulterated business-class items, where the brand still has a battling shot.

Larry cherishes grabbing bothered organizations for next to nothing. See Sun again for a current case, and recall that RIM today is worth one-fifth of the incentive at its 2008 pinnacle.

At long last, Oracle is no more peculiar to entering completely new markets through buyouts. The organization didn't offer servers before the Sun bargain, and never administered to money related administration programming purchasing Siebel, PeopleSoft, and JD Edwards. Snatching RIM would be not bad, but at the same time not enough to blow anyone's mind.

So there you have it: Oracle is RIM's optimal accomplice. All that being stated, the organization could even now perish from neglect, in solitude. Offering out to any other individual would require Balsillie and Lazaridis to twist their monster personalities a considerable amount, and I don't anticipate that them will relinquish that unbalanced co-CEO game plan. Regardless of how impeccable the proposed bargain, RIM won't discover a purchaser until shareholders ascend to supplant these folks. By then, the patent-esteem lift will be a distant memory and everyone will go home irate.

[itsfinancethings]

New world news from Time: How Travelers Are Beating Tough Flight Restrictions Eight Month Into the Pandemic

Travel curbs and border restrictions are upending lives around the globe, with some people resorting to chartering planes on their own or paying many times the regular ticket price to get back to their jobs and homes.

Eight months into the pandemic, the push to normalize is seeing some try to travel internationally again, whether for a long-delayed but essential business trip or to return to where they live. Yet with global coronavirus cases surpassing 18 million and rising, airlines are only reluctantly adding flights to their bare-bones schedules, and virus resurgences have some countries imposing new travel rules.

The flight paralysis underscores how deep and lasting the pandemic’s damage is proving to be. The number of international flights to the U.S., Australia and Japan has fallen more than 80% from a year ago, while flights to China are down by more than 94%, according to aviation industry database Cirium.

Travelers have to be creative just to get on a plane. Support groups have sprung up on Facebook and Wechat for those who have been stuck thousands of miles from their jobs, homes and families. Unable to get tickets, some are attempting to organize private chartered flights, while travel agents say they’re having to bribe airlines for limited seats. Others are shelling out for business or first-class tickets, only to be turned away for lack of the right documentation.

“So many people with families are separated, it’s so heart-breaking,” said Ariel Lee, a mother in Shanghai who administers a few Wechat groups of 1,650 members in total trying to get into China. “The toughest part is there are no clear guidelines and there’s no end date to this.”

The hopeful talk of travel corridors and a summer recovery have faded away among airline industry experts, replaced by a consensus that global travel will not effectively re-start before a vaccine is found.

“We are not going to see a material recovery for international travel in the near future,” said Steven Kwok, associate partner of OC&C Strategy Consultants Ltd. “The pandemic also brings about a consequential impact beyond the virus outbreak –- it is causing a slowdown in the global economy, which will hurt travel appetite for a longer term.”

Higher prices

Chris Wells had been stuck in his hometown in Texas for half a year, eagerly looking to return to Guangzhou, a city in southern China where he’s been living and working for more than a decade. International travel to China has been severely limited by the government to stem imported infections, and any seats on flights are snatched up almost instantly.

Wells, 41, a manager in an international sourcing company, searched and searched for a ticket. The only one he could find: an $8,800 one-way, first-class flight from Chicago to Shanghai, via Zurich.

“It was the only seat available,” he said. “I’d normally never pay that much for a ticket, but I was desperate to get back so I grabbed the seat when I found it.”

Cherry Lin, a Shanghai-based travel agent, said her company is having to pay kickbacks to airlines — more than 10,000 yuan ($1,438) per seat — to get tickets on popular routes like those departing from the U.S. and U.K. that they can then sell to customers.

The flight or passenger cap set by many countries largely limits seats, pushing fares up — a ticket for a direct flight from London to Shanghai is currently going for about $5,000, said Lin, but those are quickly purchased.

Additional seats are likely to pop up this month as more airlines resume flights, “but still not enough that everyone can easily buy online,” she said.

Changing rules

Jessica Cutrera, 44, an American who has lived in Hong Kong for more than a decade, was looking to return to the Asian financial center last month when the city suddenly required a negative virus test for passengers coming from high-risk countries including the U.S. She had to show results from a test taken within 72 hours before boarding and fulfill a requirement that travelers present a letter — signed by a government official — verifying that the lab is accredited.

Getting test results within 72 hours was hard enough given that testing is so backed up in the U.S that results usually aren’t available before a week. Then there was the required letter. “I called everybody I could find,” she said. “Most offices and agencies said no, it didn’t make sense to them to sign such a letter.”

Eventually, someone in California agreed to sign. So Cutrera flew from Louisville, Kentucky, to Chicago, and then to Los Angeles, where she had the test done. A few days later, she was allowed to board her flight to Hong Kong, while others trying to get on the same plane were turned away as they didn’t have the proper paperwork.

Cutrera is proving to be one of the lucky ones, as many continue to be in limbo.

Lucy Parakhina, a 33-year-old Australian photographer, had decided to stay in London, where she has lived for two years.

But in June, she started to plan a return trip when her U.K. work visa expired. Though she managed to buy a one-way ticket from London to Sydney for less than 700 pounds ($922) with Qatar Airways, she was bumped from her flight and told it was postponed.

She already left her job in London and gave up her apartment, and won’t have income to stay in the U.K. beyond September. But with a virus resurgence in Australia showing no signs of ebbing and international flights down by 92% to the country, she’s likely stuck for a while.

“Now the only thing I can do is to wait for the easing policies and my flight to depart as planned,” she said.

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[worldtravelerhd-blog]

Travels with Drone: What's it's like Carrying a Drone Around the World

What is it like to do a RTW trip or long term travel with drone?

Annoying, inconvenient, often times sweaty. Also though, completely worth it.

Looking for a bit more information than just that? My take on the experience is categorized below so that you can jump quickly to the bits that are of most relevance to you and your upcoming travels. After all, this is a LONG article.  If you're interested in this subject, it's likely that you're really interested.  If you're not interested in this subject, the internet is filled with funny videos of cats and monkeys.  Go get 'em!

Foreign Laws Regarding Drone Use

Understanding foreign laws governing drone use is probably the biggest component to watch out for while traveling with a drone. Before I attempted to fly in any country, I would always do a quick read through online to determine if I should be aware of any country specific laws forbidding use of drones. If I found information of concern through an official site or on a drone forum, I'd do a bit of extra research to clarify the issue.

One of the first things to be aware of when reading foreign laws is to know that many laws are specific to commercial drones.  Recreational drones are sometimes not subject to the same requirements for certifications, insurance, etc. 

When doing research on drone laws you inevitably are going to run into opinions from a bunch of mouth breathing neckbeards who think you'll end up in a bamboo prison if you fly a drone in another country- it's simply not the case. Additionally, lots of armchair experts on the subject mistakenly think that any law they see online applies to all drones, without bothering to do the research on what differentiates recreational drone use versus commercial drone use.

If I ever found info or law I was unclear on, I would reach out the local aviation authority from that country. For example, I had more than a few emails and phone calls with the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines to guarantee I wouldn't find myself in trouble for flying a drone there.

At the end of the day, you're the one who's going to have a big remote in their hands. We all know there is nothing inconspicuous about flying so if you're in the wrong, you're likely going to get called out on it.

Better to Beg Forgiveness Than to Ask Permission

On the flip side of being cautious, if you want to make french toast, you gotta break a few eggs. Much like the United States, many foreign governments find themselves confused with just how to regulate drone use. In these cases, you may just have to go for it and fly using common sense rules.

Stay under 400 ft in elevation.

Don't fly in a manner that puts people at risk (above crowds, in front of passenger planes, etc)

Stay away from airports, government buildings, and military bases. (5 miles is the law in the United States.  Any closer and you would need to notify the Air Traffic Control Tower)

Physically Carrying the Drone

What. A. Pain. In. The. Ass.

Easily the worst part of bringing a drone with you around the world is actually bringing a drone around the world with you.

If you want to get any interesting footage, you need to bring the drone on daily adventures. This means your day bag is now your drone bag, so in addition to your drone you have to pack food, water bottle, light jacket, sunscreen, etc into your drone bag. Feels heavy? You betcha!

Imagine a beautiful, clear day and you're going to do a 5 hour mountain hike.  Of course, you're taking the drone with you because you're going to do an epic Point-of-Interest 360 degree video at the peak. 4.5 hours into the hike, wind picks up out of nowhere and you just lugged a robot that can fly up the side of a mountain. That's what disappointment feels like.

Carrying the Drone on the Airplane

Instead of a carry-on bag with toys and treats, you now have a carry on bag that is 100% fragile and filled with robot.  That means that you're carrying two bags on you whenever you are actually moving between destinations.  Even if you're an ultra light backpacker and only bring a few extra pairs of underwear, you're going to be loaded up like a sherpa when its time to go to the airport, train, or bus.

hile I may not have had any major hassles by security or customs, officers did seem to show special interest in the drone from time to time. I imagine this is a trend that will slowly fade as the tech becomes more commonplace. The only time I had my drone confiscated was by security getting onto a Princess Cruise. They simply kept the drone in a locked room that I could “check out” whenever we got into a port of call. I completely understand the cruise ships don't want to become aircraft carriers if its at all preventable. 

Having to Fly Extremely Cautiously 24/7.... or bring extra parts

I do my best to fly cautiously so that I pose no danger to people. I think that's a good rule that everyone can get behind.

When I'm in the U.S. though, I'm willing to fly the drone in closer proximity to trees, cliffsides, etc in order to get a more dynamic shot. When traveling though you can't get as risky with your shots- replacement parts are hard to get a hold of and too much of a hassle to carry many of them with you.

When I had a propeller failure (obligatory video) in Austria and had to order a new body shell for my P3, I had to do a rush order on parts from a UK provider to be delivered to our Germany apartment. It was not easy and far from cheap. If I had been in a remote part of Vietnam when it happened, I would have ended up lugging around a non functioning drone for more than 2 months.

Broken drones are not a problem- they can be fixed. The bigger tragedy is missing the shots you wanted to take because you can't get your hands on replacement parts.

The list of potential dangers grows longer and longer the more your travel: territorial birds, sudden rain showers/drizzle, rogue wind gusts, sightseeing helicopter tours that are not concerned with minimum altitudes (looking at you Dubai/New Zealand).

Worrying about it Getting Stolen

As if worrying about breaking the drone by your own hand isn't enough, you also have the stress of knowing you have a high profile, expensive piece of tech in your bag that is ripe for stealin'.

Aside from someone stealing the drone from our room when we were out and about, it isn't out of the question that we could attract attention and end up getting mugged somewhere such as a hiking trail. A drone in the sky is the ultimate sign that you have something worth stealing. While the best way to prevent theft is just to be alert of your surroundings it can be difficult to keep your court awareness up while the drone is in the air.

There were a few specific times during the trip where I didn't fly because the area seemed a bit on the rough. (The hotel attendant in Ho Chi Minh grabbed me before I walked out the door and pulled me in saying someone would drive by and snatch the controller). Remember, you're not just taking out the drone and remote for the audience that inevitably gathers. You're also inevitably pulling out an iPad or smartphone, as well as giving a peak at whatever valuables you're carrying in your drone travel bag.

INSURANCE: There is no small price tag associated with owning a UAV. We made sure to get the higher coverage from WorldNomads so that we would be covered up to $3,000 total with a $1,500 per item limit. 

You'll Always Have An Audience

While traveling the world, I would wager that I had people watching me fly over my shoulder at least 80% of the time I used my Phantom 3. This isn't really much different than the United States though and in well traveled areas drones attract much less attention. Flying a drone won't draw a crowd in Phi Phi or in Bali but in less traveled areas of South East Asia sometimes it felt like the entire town showed up to see what I was doing.

My experiences with onlookers was 99% positive. Kids absolutely love the drone and some of my most memorable shots are of them chasing the drone low to the ground or just trying to jump up and grab it. I was amazed by how many times I would be totally alone near a jungle and 5 minutes after the drone was in the sky, I'd have four kids peaking over my shoulder to see the video.

My only negative experience the whole trip was at Monkey Island in New Zealand where an older woman was convinced that I was going to use the drone to spy on people. I don't know how I'm supposed to spy on anyone with something that sounds like a gas weedwacker, but long story short, she was an absolute delight to have met and seemed really well informed...

Traveling with a Drone is a Sure Fire Way to Become a Better Pilot and Videographer

Without a doubt my skill has improved in the past 8 months. I can say with confidence that I'm no longer the very worst Phantom pilot on this earth-probably still rank in the bottom 1% though. I haven't maimed myself, hurt anyone else, and I've only crashed the drone once.

I've used the drone as often as possible and am constantly pushing myself to try new ideas for shots as well as shoot new subjects. While traveling, I've had the time to learn more about how to use filters properly and how to use the manual settings as well.  These sort of details are second nature to anyone with photography experience but are completely uncharted territory for someone who just wanted to use a flying robot to get "cool shots".

For our travels, I forced myself to work off one battery to save weight in the drone bag.  Using a single battery will force you to become an expert at planning all your shots ahead of time. Before launching your drone you'll become accustomed to building a mental list of shots that you need to nail before you land. Before you know it, your flight times will become shorter and shorter.

Yes, the Benefits of Traveling with a Drone make it Completely Worth It

If you're still questioning whether to bring a drone on your trip I hope I've at least brought up some points that you previously had not thought about. You'll want to consider the methods of transportation you'll be using, the drone laws of the countries you'll be visiting, and finally, if you want to deal with the very real hassle of bringing the drone out with you on your daily adventures.

Even though there are quite a few drawbacks to carrying the drone with on such a long trip, I can honestly say that some of the best video we created is a result of having the drone with us. Now, if I the drone had been stolen during the trip or I'd crashed it into the side of a mountain, I might not be singing the same tune.

At the end of any weighing of pros and cons, I have a 3 minute long 360 degree video of Allison and I fighting with sticks at the top of a mountain in New Zealand. It's the little things for me, and a video like this kind of makes its all worth it to me.

OTHER RELEVANT TECH: If you're looking to take your video production to the next level on your trip, you'll get more bang for your buck by springing for an external microphone and a powered gimbal for the GoPro you already likely own.

[itsfinancethings]

Travel curbs and border restrictions are upending lives around the globe, with some people resorting to chartering planes on their own or paying many times the regular ticket price to get back to their jobs and homes.

Eight months into the pandemic, the push to normalize is seeing some try to travel internationally again, whether for a long-delayed but essential business trip or to return to where they live. Yet with global coronavirus cases surpassing 18 million and rising, airlines are only reluctantly adding flights to their bare-bones schedules, and virus resurgences have some countries imposing new travel rules.

The flight paralysis underscores how deep and lasting the pandemic’s damage is proving to be. The number of international flights to the U.S., Australia and Japan has fallen more than 80% from a year ago, while flights to China are down by more than 94%, according to aviation industry database Cirium.

Travelers have to be creative just to get on a plane. Support groups have sprung up on Facebook and Wechat for those who have been stuck thousands of miles from their jobs, homes and families. Unable to get tickets, some are attempting to organize private chartered flights, while travel agents say they’re having to bribe airlines for limited seats. Others are shelling out for business or first-class tickets, only to be turned away for lack of the right documentation.

“So many people with families are separated, it’s so heart-breaking,” said Ariel Lee, a mother in Shanghai who administers a few Wechat groups of 1,650 members in total trying to get into China. “The toughest part is there are no clear guidelines and there’s no end date to this.”

The hopeful talk of travel corridors and a summer recovery have faded away among airline industry experts, replaced by a consensus that global travel will not effectively re-start before a vaccine is found.

“We are not going to see a material recovery for international travel in the near future,” said Steven Kwok, associate partner of OC&C Strategy Consultants Ltd. “The pandemic also brings about a consequential impact beyond the virus outbreak –- it is causing a slowdown in the global economy, which will hurt travel appetite for a longer term.”

Higher prices

Chris Wells had been stuck in his hometown in Texas for half a year, eagerly looking to return to Guangzhou, a city in southern China where he’s been living and working for more than a decade. International travel to China has been severely limited by the government to stem imported infections, and any seats on flights are snatched up almost instantly.

Wells, 41, a manager in an international sourcing company, searched and searched for a ticket. The only one he could find: an $8,800 one-way, first-class flight from Chicago to Shanghai, via Zurich.

“It was the only seat available,” he said. “I’d normally never pay that much for a ticket, but I was desperate to get back so I grabbed the seat when I found it.”

Cherry Lin, a Shanghai-based travel agent, said her company is having to pay kickbacks to airlines — more than 10,000 yuan ($1,438) per seat — to get tickets on popular routes like those departing from the U.S. and U.K. that they can then sell to customers.

The flight or passenger cap set by many countries largely limits seats, pushing fares up — a ticket for a direct flight from London to Shanghai is currently going for about $5,000, said Lin, but those are quickly purchased.

Additional seats are likely to pop up this month as more airlines resume flights, “but still not enough that everyone can easily buy online,” she said.

Changing rules

Jessica Cutrera, 44, an American who has lived in Hong Kong for more than a decade, was looking to return to the Asian financial center last month when the city suddenly required a negative virus test for passengers coming from high-risk countries including the U.S. She had to show results from a test taken within 72 hours before boarding and fulfill a requirement that travelers present a letter — signed by a government official — verifying that the lab is accredited.

Getting test results within 72 hours was hard enough given that testing is so backed up in the U.S that results usually aren’t available before a week. Then there was the required letter. “I called everybody I could find,” she said. “Most offices and agencies said no, it didn’t make sense to them to sign such a letter.”

Eventually, someone in California agreed to sign. So Cutrera flew from Louisville, Kentucky, to Chicago, and then to Los Angeles, where she had the test done. A few days later, she was allowed to board her flight to Hong Kong, while others trying to get on the same plane were turned away as they didn’t have the proper paperwork.

Cutrera is proving to be one of the lucky ones, as many continue to be in limbo.

Lucy Parakhina, a 33-year-old Australian photographer, had decided to stay in London, where she has lived for two years.

But in June, she started to plan a return trip when her U.K. work visa expired. Though she managed to buy a one-way ticket from London to Sydney for less than 700 pounds ($922) with Qatar Airways, she was bumped from her flight and told it was postponed.

She already left her job in London and gave up her apartment, and won’t have income to stay in the U.K. beyond September. But with a virus resurgence in Australia showing no signs of ebbing and international flights down by 92% to the country, she’s likely stuck for a while.

“Now the only thing I can do is to wait for the easing policies and my flight to depart as planned,” she said.