The Philippine Elevator Pitch

The Philippine black market now has a corporate wholesale business model. It is becoming more and more common for elevator operators in office buildings to sell various impulse items ranging from pirated DVDs (around US$1.26 per disc at today’s exchange rate) to soap.

The elevator entrepreneurs take down orders at the start of the day and deliver to each office late in the afternoon. Discounts are given to frequent customers ("suki") and for bulk orders. It is hard to say whether these guys are actually formally employed or are simply hijacking the lifts.

I’d love to hear about a legitimate version of this going on somewhere else in the world – leave a comment.