If you urgently want a product from somewhere in the free world and you are willing to pay the price, the worst “shortage” you will experience is the cost of flying there or hiring a “personal shopper.” As I previously wrote in response to an EconLog comment, “if you were willing to pay and you need a croissant before tomorrow morning, you can hop on a plane for Paris.” If you find that too expensive, there is no shortage but simply a price you are not willing to pay (I previously called that a “smurfage” as opposed to a shortage). The most costly obstacle, sometimes prohibitively costly, would be government regulation.
There are also companies, such as Grabr or AirWayBill, who offer to match the non-rich with travelers who will, for a modest fee, get what you want when they are there and deliver it to you in person when they are back. (See “Your Personal Shopper … On the Other Side of the World,” November 23, 2024.) It might take you a few days or weeks to get it, though.
The beauty of trade (on which I wrote a previous EconLog post) does not stop there, of course. Most of the beauty is invisible in our daily purchases, thanks to the merchants and other professional middlemen including retailers who brought the product close to you, or imported some of its components from distant places. But a Wall Street Journal story of last week gave another micro and personalized example of how trade brings to ordinary people what they could not otherwise obtain (Joel Millman, “1,800 Miles to Satisfy a Craving: Meet the World’s Most Dedicated Food-Delivery Guy,” January 2, 2025).
Maik Chavez, 36, is the owner-operator of Maik Express, a business in Guatemala where he lives. He is part of a cottage industry of individual couriers, called viageros or travelers, who deliver home-made meals and other goods from Guatemala to Guatemalan Americans who order them or receive them from friends or family in their country of origin. Last year, Maik made 38 runs to cities in five U.S. states, each individual run lasting less than 48 hours. He carries his wares as personal luggage on his flights. He charges a flat fee of $12 a pound. One of his new customers is Virginian resident Verónica Romero, who earns a living as a home-cleaner; she paid $240 in cash when Maik delivered her exotic home-made food for Christmas.
Fortunately, our benevolent government surveils and controls:
Chavez travels under a B1/B2 business visa that won’t expire until November 2027. Under the terms of his entry, he can’t stay more than five days at a time per excursion, nor can he make more than $2,000 on any visit. He says he averages $1,500 or so after expenses and pays Guatemalan taxes on his profits.
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When I was preparing to draft this post, I recalled reading an article on international personal shoppers, but I couldn’t find it. I have often joked that I face a big research assistant “shortage”: I direly need one but I can’t find one on the market for $3 an hour. Perhaps Chat GPT can solve my smurfage problem? I asked him or her: “Can you find the title or url of a story I read several months ago (perhaps one or a couple of years ago) about intermediaries who will go and get whatever somebody (presumably rich) wants in a foreign shop and delivers it in person?”
After five seconds of “reflection,” she replied, “You might be recalling the article titled ‘Your personal shopper . . . on the other side of the world,’ published by the Financial Times on November 23, 2024. This piece discusses services like Grabr, which connect buyers with travelers to purchase and deliver goods from foreign shops, catering to clients seeking items unavailable or expensive in their own countries. The article highlights how these intermediaries operate, often delivering luxury items directly to consumers.” Included was the link to the FT story.
This was precisely the article I was looking for and which I link to above—even if I was wrong on the timing and source!
I told her she was “a good robot,” and instructed her to draw an image illustrating the Wall Street Journal story I also cite in my post and which I uploaded to her. The featured image of this post (reproduced below) is the best one of half a dozen images she produced; far from perfect, but for the price…
An entrepreneur from Guatemala
READER COMMENTS
Craig
Jan 5 2025 at 1:14pm
“pays Guatemalan taxes on his profits.”
That’s a bit sketchy, I mean if I were to engage in that activity it’d be a prepared meal and the meal would be thus subjected to sales tax at the state level.
Pierre Lemieux
Jan 5 2025 at 3:50pm
Craig: Thanks for this addendum. Such regulation would, of course, impose a large and probably prohibitive burden on a small businessman like Maik. Another thing I just discovered half an hour ago is that a B1 (and a fortiori a B2) visa does not allow one to engage in any profitable business activity in the US. Perhaps the journalist meant an E-1 visa or some other visa; or there is an exception in the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR). I have written to the journalist about that but my email was returned as undeliverable. I have now written to the managing editor.
All this is consistent with my “The most costly obstacle, sometimes prohibitively costly, would be government regulation” and “our benevolent government”; and with my qualification “in the free world.”
I’ll add an erratum or addendum to my post when I hear from the WSJ.
Craig
Jan 7 2025 at 10:26am
I did enjoy the story though it seems difficult to understand how that can be a profitable endeavor. I’m wondering if NY pizza/bagels would be potentially profitable as between NY and South FL — bagels in particular since pizza might be a bit messy.
Pierre Lemieux
Jan 12 2025 at 10:25pm
Craig: I did talk to the journalist. My own hypothesis is that the poor Maik probably learned at school that the US was the country of free enterprise.
Richard W Fulmer
Jan 5 2025 at 1:33pm
As long as any need or desire exists, a job exists to fill it. In Equality, the Third World, and Economic Delusion, P.T. Bauer defines unemployment as an excess supply of labor over demand at the prevailing cost of employing workers (p. 257). Government increases the cost of employment — and therefore increases unemployment — through countless dictates, including minimum wage laws, employer and employee mandates, occupational licensing, business startup requirements, certificate of need laws, and zoning restrictions.
Thomas L Hutcheson
Jan 7 2025 at 7:11pm
It is beautiful, but isn’t the real mystery why a government would care about the residence or nationality of a person you wanted to do business with?
Pierre Lemieux
Jan 8 2025 at 12:18am
Thomas: It depends, doesn’t it? It is not a real (positive) mystery given what we know about the rulers’ incentives: a government, that is, political rulers, gain power when they can appeal to tribal and nationalist sentiments. And from “the people” to “the enemies of the people” within, the distance is short (see my “The Impossibility of Populism“). It becomes a logical mystery, though, when political rulers or their supporters claim to be defending a free society. John Hicks was taking the side of the classical liberals when he wrote: