OVER BOUGHT GOODS.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 May 1921, Page 10

OVER BOUGHT GOODS.

SOUTH AMERICAN EXPERIENCES.

SIMILAR TO NEW ZEALAND’S.

New Zealand merchants and tradesmen are not the only sufferers from the rushing of delayed orders by Home manufacturers on to a falling colonial market. According to a report, in the New York Times of a recent issue, much the same thing is being experienced in other parts of the world. In Brazil, for /instance, there is in t every /port an accumulation of merchandise purchased —mostly under contract—at prices which no longer afford opportunity for sale at a profit to the distributor. Exchange rates aggravate the difference in prices of goods; hence repeated requests for extensions. Shipments which have recently been coming forward are largely in response to orders placed in the United States six, seven, and even ten months ago, says the report. The domestic demand in the United States at that time, and for several months after was so great that the American manufacturer was either unable to supply the foreign market, or, as is known to be true in very many cases,, the foreign market was neglected for the sake of nearer and allegedly safer consumption and payment. The Brazilian importers, being unable to procure promise of prompt delivery, and failing to find suitable merchandise in adequate volume in their former European markets, placed duplicate orders with a number of American manufacturers ol 1 agents for the same goods, just as they had done during the war, expecting that if quick delivery was not possible from one source, it would be from another. More or less suddenly conditions in the United States changed. The domestic demand decreased sufficiently to leave some surplus in the hands of the producers, and the latter then—almost simultaneously—of course sent to the South American market merchandise which they had not been able to ship before. And so the Brazilian importer began to receive his goods, not merely from one of the sources he had tried, but from many or all of them, and all at the same time, or at least within a few weeks of one another. The result was heavy congestion and inability to me : et demands for payment.