Why Rattan Furniture Is So Expensive | So Expensive
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- čas přidán 18. 02. 2022
- Rattan is a naturally renewable climbing palm typically used in furniture labeled as wicker, which is the term for how it’s woven. And the price tag for this furniture is usually high: a real rattan chair can cost over $1,000, and as a material, it’s almost three times the price of bamboo! But getting rattan is complicated. What makes it so hard to harvest? And is that the reason it’s so expensive?
EDITOR'S NOTE: At 7:03 in this video, we state that Sarimanto sells 1 kilogram of raw rattan for about 7 cents. This is incorrect. He sells one kilogram of raw rattan for about $14 cents. This would mean that farmers in the 1980s were getting 5 times, not 10 times, as much for the same amount. Insider regrets the error.
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Why Rattan Is So Expensive | So Expensive
They talk about how expensive it is, I just remember being beaten with it.
Speak for yourself. It gets exported to other Asian countries like Maldives where parents and teachers even use it to beat us.
hahaha tapi nama kau pun tong sampah hahaha...lawak sia hahahaha
Lol i remember i always hid my mother's spanking ratan. But i still end up being spanked by her flip-flops
I live in SEA too i also remember being beaten with it and it looks like aboundant and not really rare i didn't know that in the west its valuable sad too know that in the world we live in the people who get the material itself get like nothing but the people who sells them to western nation and label them as luxury gets all the money.
@@venomancer5736 Parents be using it like some disposable product. The replace it when it starts fraying, and it only starts fraying because its being used for one purpose and one purpose only...
Its sad how almost every video in this series ends up with the farmers getting pennies, not being able to afford necessities, just for the finished product to cost more than they would see in their lifetime, I really hope Business Insider pays them a good amount for these videos.
They and their countries let themselves be exploited. And you can’t expect them to get the same pay as you in your country as costs of living there is much cheaper.
@@TheBooban not really, many times corporations work together to keep the price low so instead of them selling to the highest bidder they sell for whatever they can get. And we're not saying they should be rich but if what you're harvesting can be worth thousands of dollars don't they at least deserve a basic level of comfort?
I agree
@@TheBooban I'll give you a scenario, in January this year Indonesia passed a law banning the export of raw and unprocessed commodity such as Nickel ore and other type of ores and rare earths. This was to encourage companies to process the ores to finish or semi-finish goods in Indonesi as it can sell up to 10x the price in the global market compared when raw.
Did you know what happen in the end? The EU threatened Indonesia with sanctions through the WTO stating that it can cause many Europeans to processing factories to close down and Europeans to lose jobs.
The lesson is that there is two sides to the same coin, you said these countries let themselves be exploited, the flip side is that often times they have their hands tied by richer countries to be exploited.
Exactly, these guys and gals are doing all the difficult work of getting the rattan down and making it sellable, yet they are wearing sandals and not even wearing any gloves to dethorn the plant. If this is a personal decision then that's fair enough, nut something tells me they are not being offered any protective equipment by the buyers who make millions buying directly from these guys. While people here in the west think a rattan garden set is a necessity then I guess this will never stop. Fairtrade needs to be universal to all, not a choice. But that's never going to happen
Rattan is accessible here in the Philippines. They also dont cost an extreme amount of money. I guess what makes it expensive are these big companies outside of Asia then sell them so high!
But not expensive... Hahaha o erorice tong video nato
It's expensive as it's being sold to areas where Rattan isn't available nor accessible. Like Ivory in the early days.
pamalo lang samin yan nung bata kami 🤣🤣🤣🤣
sa amin sa isabela marami yan "uwway" kung tawagin, nung bata ako naglilinis ako niyan piso isa, 😁
Harvesting rattan without permit is illegal. It’s like cutting narra without permit.
My mom would be so mad to know someone purchased a rattan furniture for $2000. It almost give her a heart attack when she saw all this rattan stuff sold in IKEA for more than $5.
Faux rattan lols.
maoo
I am from Malaysia. My parents have a set of rattan sofas and coffee tables. I guess they could be worth over 10k USD today in the West. Back when I was a child and they bought the furniture, we were poor and could only afford locally made, traditional furniture.
20$ locally, 100$ on the international market.
So the answer is: it’s so expensive because companies are exploiting local producers and overcharging 400%.
resellers always profiting the most
@@ruka6246 if theres no reseller its may end up as home and personal uses,
@@cimuraisampi the point is resellers want to profit the most
@@ruka6246 that have something to do with capitalist model of businesses - maximized profits,
if the harvesters dissatisfied just find another buyer or go finding market by themselves, if they cant then find some help.
the best way is to give a certain amount of the profit back to the craftsmans but obviously that will never happen
I live in SEA. I didn't know it's difficult to harvest rattan. Furnitures and items were abundant back in the days and pretty cheap too.
it's getting rarer and more expensive now
Parent be using the canes like it disposable
more people want it (it's in fashion as the must have garden furniture set in UK at the moment and has been for at least 5 years', and now there's less of it to go around equals more££££££
nowadays there are fake rattan furniture, further make these business more sexier for european markets
its still cheap and abundant. business insider is just running out of expensive things to talk about
I'm Indonesian, when I was a kid, in the 90's. We used to have rattan rocking chair. It used to be cheaper than a regular wooden rocking chair. The difference between furniture made of rattan with wood is when the one made of rattan breaks or rotten, it cannot be easily repaired unlike the one made of wood.
In America a rattan chair costs a lot more than a wooden one
@@121476 if you count shipping and tax i cant see why not
its still cheap here in philippines, we even have rattan folding bed and rattan bed. You just need to make sure they don't get wet.
I used to import from one of the largest producers there in Surabaya Indonesia.
@@121476 That is so true.I also weave and sell the furniture and baskets here for an arm and a leg🤣
As someone from borneo it shocks me how expensive it is outside indonesia/SEA hope the govt and people continue to take care of our forests and workers
Here in America, rattan is like diamonds. Malls and Furniture stores sale them up to $8,000 depending on what it is.
@@gheerock4077 damn here rattan furniture is only like $10-$20 im guessing its because of export
@@gheerock4077 😶 wow....
@@gheerock4077 meh, you know what makes it expensive?
Insider people
@@gheerock4077 i guess i know what i'm gonna export then.
Let's be honest, in that 35$, the actual farmer/worker most probably gets only a dollar or two.
Not even a dollar or two. They might make a few dollars for an entire day of work.
@@mastervz4806 mostly like less than 20 per day
In this few minutes I didn't get a number, but found a paper of 2008 that says that a little more than 23.7% of forest related works earned less than 2 dollars per day in indonesia of 2008
Sad how sometimes the sellers and retailers make more then the actual laborers :(
@@LucasAleatorioRandom The minimum wage for workers in countries like Thailand and Indonesia is around $10 per day. And when you work for yourself, after all your cost, you’re not making $10/day. They are probably making just enough to eat.
No wonder why it's so iconic in Animal Crossing
Lmbo literally clicked bc of animal crossing
Lmao yeah 🙂
@@novellajohnson8714 me too 🤣
I clicked because i remember being beaten by it
@@neelan8559 😬😬😬
People in the SEA region recognise rattan not only as furniture but primarily as a punishment tool.
Yes~ SEA region kid called it "Long Candy"
In the old days it was common in the West too similarly. Woven wicker paddles, they were used to beat the dust out of rugs. Also big wooden spoons.
Yeah and the chanclas (sandals) in Latin America.
the farmers being underpaid isn't really an industry issue but a government one. There needs to be a middle ground limit the amount sold overseas and keep it to small farmer cooperatives instead of large corporations. Also to make it affordable to weavers make so x percentage of harvest has to be sold local. Like 40% international, 60% local.
No. Government is the cause of and never the solution to societal problems. Time for a basic economics class about supply and demand.
Is there a demand for it locally?
@@NietzscheanMan But if the demand was left unchecked by laws, mass deforestation would occur to meet the demands. We've seen it happen with other hot commodities in other countries, like the mass deforestation in Sumatra. They even said in the video that before the law, the mass deforestation was so bad that it was leading to worse flooding. You can't just ignore the impact of unchecked consumerism.
@@ANPC-pi9vu that's not how the market works, that's how banana republics which keep their citizens in perpetual poverty work. I am involved in forst preservation work, government intervention equals corruption and always makes everything worse.
the farmer is very strong to carry 70kg of rattan by himself all the way from harvest site to his boat. the people that bought the rattan had to carry them in a group.
My parents used to use rattan not to weave em into chairs, but beat the crap out of me when i screwed up..
Wkwkwk iyaa dingsanak ae
Lol that fking hurts.
Ini wkwkwk
The Rules that have been issued by the Indonesia government are always difficult to cancel (Because there are many underlying reasons why the rules are difficult to cancel). And I as an Indonesian feel sad to see this happen. Although on the one hand I also don't want deforestation to occur in Indonesia's forests.
Government regulation to increase the price of rattan. Selling finished products is more profitable than selling raw goods. If you want rattan farmers to control the price of rattan, they must understand the supply and demand system. The method is easy, all rattan farmers agree not to harvest rattan for a long period of time until demand increases when supply decreases.
The problem is whether rattan farmers will be able to survive without selling rattan for a long time?
@TheExplorer the problem is stated in the video: it effects small produces much more than large producers. The law could be amended to allow small producers to export a certain amount every year, allowing them to maintain their livelihood
@@marcob1729 that makes no sense. Why would it effect small and big differently? And if you create such a loophole, they will exploit it, just many many many small companies acting for large companies.
@TheExplorer A large company has little incentive to “harvest the rattan like crazy” to the point where there is no material left. Because then what would they sell? A farmer does not harvest the wheat to then just leave the land barren. They replant and fertilize and ensure they have something to harvest and sell next year. With a plant like rattan that I am sure requires the entire forest ecosystem to grow properly, large companies have every incentive to preserve and maintain or at least replant what would be harvested.
@@thealucas7247 they do have, since they have more capital to fund synthetics once the rotan runs up. Large company have more land to harvest, more connection to sell to, and more resource to acquire more, legally or not. They'll easily make a monopoly, just like coal and palm oil in Indonesia, and internet service provider, especially ISP, GD slow ISP.
plus, large company usually came from abroad, which by having a government so corrupt, give little contribution to locals.
It only cost so much if you buy it from some upscale retailer overcharging you.
Come to SEA and you can get it for cheap from a bunch of local sellers.
Source: I live in SEA and I have no idea the chair I bought for $20 is apparently worth $2000.
Furniture made from rattan became popular outside southeast asia during American occupation in the Philippines. These furnitures was mass produced by prisoners in Bilibid Prison in the Philippines back in the 80s and was sold to and imported to America.
Here in the Philippines, it is very rare nowadays to get hold of rattan. Since there are not many farmers that harvest rattan and not many rattan farms or areas that are planted by rattan. If there is any, usually foreign factories/companies get these rattan for their products.
Yes, rattan is becoming rare in Philippines. I remember my friend from Manila brought me some rattan sticks for learning Kali Martial Arts in 2010. And now he says rattan is so hard to find nowadays in Philippines.
Yeah. I have a few furnitures with rattan weavings from way back the 90's. I've been wanting to have the rattan weaving redone but every furniture maker I've approached near me either charged an incredibly high price or just outright refused because they couldn't get hold of rattan.
in the philippines, rattan furniture is considered the traditional filipino furniture. so many household products and furniture are made with them before that they became iconic to the traditional filipino household
Crazy how they're so expensive when the farmers and harvesters almost always live in extreme poverty
Love videos like this, make you realize how big yet connected the world is.
An already lost industry in the Philippines. Back in the 80s and 90s it was a huge livelihood for the minorities that greatly improved their lives.
Back then rattans were usually big in sizes, a cane made of solid rattan is also an status symbol. With this video showing rattan harvesting looks very small compared to before, looks like they ran out of time to patiently grow them to huge sizes like in the Philippines.
We have a 50 year old rattan dining table with 6 chairs and we love it, it was previously painted with cheap white paint and I painted with a spray gun in a mint teal color and it looks amazing.
in every corner of world ,the real producer or farmer of any natural product get very less and do labour very hard and middle man got most benifited with less work. as being a son of a farmer it always hurt me but same time i feel proud that it's my father( a small farmer) who feed all the world.
I didn't know the material was called Rattan. Informative video, but I do feel bad for the people who put in the hard work to make it and end up not earning much.
I never knew they are actually expensive, or as they say in the video, it's cheaper here.
The furniture that I have used is comfy and I ever see the drying process when traveling to the outskirt of the city where I live (I live near it anyway, it's not a big city).
Also you can eat the younger, softer part iirc (just like with bamboo). Didn't like it personally, but my parents did.
I remember eating the young rattan back home (Philippines) quite bitter 😂 but addictive. Also the fruits you can also eat it and very sour 🤣
Btw how does it feel on the body🙂?
I love this series
This is why Support Local is so important been doing this lately even it cost more
"5/5 Perfect for beating your spoiled child, Exported with love from Indonesia"
Blows my mind that what I spend at the Cheesecake Factory is enough for someone in Borneo to live on for a MONTH 😨
While I enjoy learning about these traditional crafts, it’s so upsetting how these craftsmen are paid no where near as much as they should. It’s also upsetting how these crafts are gradually dying out because of the changing global environment that’s making these materials less available.
Our family brought a whole set of rattan living room furniture from Taiwan 40 years ago. It contains a four person sofa, two arm chairs, one coffee table, one side table and an ottoman. The thickest part is about 3 inches in diameter. We paid a pretty high price already at the time, but I wonder how much it's worth now.
@Masen S I know, especially those thicker ones made long ago!
It's not that expensive if you know where to look.
The provinces in the Philippines have good quality inexpensive rattan furnitures.
Most importantly, it's crucial that the rattan stay dry
"Proceed to transport rattan when it's raining"
Those are untreated rattans being transported I believe. Treated rattans are the ones should be kept dry.
my teachers and parents always used rattan to rotan (whip) my ass. now that i know it is expensive and difficult to get, i can't help but feel proud of myself. i believe it was the most expensive thing ever touch my skin so far.
Im from Malaysia. I remembered my grandpa and grandma had a sofa made from rattan. Even when i was a kid i realized how unique the sofa was.
I love the rattan hat. One of my favorite Kenshi headgears.
Brilliant drone shot at 7:30 and what timing too with the narration!
As a little kid, I took these plants as weeds in the park and some parts of the neighborhood. I didn't know what I was looking at was something really valuable.
Good video for learning English 👍
It's expensive because it takes decades for it to grow long, its leaves are full of thorns and harvesting it very tedious.
Love these so much
Wait what, here in indonesia (and most of SEA) rattan furnitures are cheap and easily obtained compared to hardwood such as ebony or oak
If you already didn’t know, rattan (known as “bett “ in Bangladesh) also grows an edible fruit type..
the rattan fruit was sweet. i was lucky to find one in the forest few years back
You learn something new every day.
i experience this situation when i'm 13/yrs old. so risky, hard & heavy 😫
Rattan furniture are flood resistance, which makes it more valuable
In india this furnitures sells at peanut prices
Informative content.
"Thanks for sharing these wonderful moments, they really made my day better!"
I am literally watching this video sitting in a rattan sofa. I never knew it costs so much.
It costs a lot in America because companies rip us off
There's one rattan chair that's been on several album covers. From the 70s I think? And it's the same chair, not just one that's similar.
You'd have to Google it though, because I can't remember which ones.
Are you referring to the rattan Peacock chair?
@@thebookreader287
Yes, and it sounds like you've heard of it, too.
Al green. White peacock chair.
@@sylvia106
Nice! You made me go check my albums to see if I had that one. Unfortunately, I don't.
These people work really hard. through the video, I am amazed at their creativity, the technology of weaving plants into objects is really amazing, and the exquisiteness that can be sold is shocking.
ahhh my childhood nemesis..
Farmer - 1 dollar
Furniture maker - 10 dollars
Capitalist - 1000 dollars
yeah equality they say.
This why I lost faith in capitalism
lmao as someone from the SEA, I'm surprised this is sold expensively abroad.
In eastern europe people use willow as a wicker. Its cheap, grows fast and is quite easy to work with.
Спасибо за видео 👍
Ah yes, Rattan
Boy do i feel proud knowing that I was caned into submission with a premium product!
"it's crucial that the rattan stay dry" but shows us rattan being transported without cover in the rain @4:47
Those are untreated rattans being transported I believe. Treated rattans are the ones should be kept dry.
I live in Cebu, Philippines. Cebu used to be the "Milan of the Philippines" regarding furnitures. In the 80s and 90s, rattan furniture factories were all over the place. Most of the finished products were sent to the US and Europe. Slowly, factories closed down.
One reason was the supply of rattan. When the supply in the Philippines was dwindling, our factories got their rattan from Indonesia. When Indonesia stopped exporting raw rattan, factories here got affected.
Another reason was the poaching of the best designers and workers. Indonesian and Chinese rattan factories offered them higher wages. So they went to Indonesia and China.
There are few factories left. The ones left combine rattan with other materials to make furnitures. One who excelled in doing this is Kenneth Cobonpue. Some of his customers are Queen Sophia of Spain, Queen Rania of Jordan, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.
Incredible hard working men and women!!! God is good always 2🙏💯💪
Losing the way of life they've always known and not being able to earn enough money because of the laws is a really sad thing to see. On the other hand, the deforestation from over-harvesting is a global issue that has forever, and irreversible, consequences.
Well the best rattan is found in the Philippines
It’s way more better than other grown rattan
And also abaca and rattan goes well together
as a guy that have experience on harvesting rootan across Sarawak and Sabah its hard. tikar rotan is my fav
I love your videos
So, has there ever been anything in this series that is expensive because it doesn't come down to all manual labor?
But this doesn’t. It comes down to companies pricing it sooooo high. Rattan things can be expensive but not $2000 expensive. That’s crazy.
@@kikiam7850 That part is because idiots pay it.
What amazes me always is that the most expensive things are harvested by farmers that barely makes a penny. Only the middleman making all the dollars.
It's also used as a handle for indoor sweep, but this one is easy since it's basically just a stick and doesn't require processing and weaving
It's funny how growing up we used to have solihiya bed and sofas and it was considered to be tacky at that time so my grandma upgraded to a more western furniture. Now solihiya furnitures are very expensive, I wish they never threw away the old ones.
It's easy on the weaver compared to wicker, but what does the end user get out of it? It doesn't seem or feel any different
0:22 you can get similar chair for less $100 in India.
In my primary school this was my mathematics teacher favorite tool for canning us. I will never forget those days
Its funny how this show is called So Expensive and often highlights the intense labors it needs to attain these materials, yet these people is the one earning the least.
So expensive!?
Growing up, this is a cheap alternative to expensive sofa or furnitures.
2x cheaper than imported sofa
sarimanto is a rich guy for owning such land. He just needs a member of the family who knows how to market it online and to big malls abroad.
He doesn't weave the rattan into final products. He harvests raw rattan. And Indonesian government forbid raw rattan export. So big mall abroad can do nothing to help him.
In the Philippines we use nito vines. Not as soft to work with as rattan, but still pretty strong. It's so interesting how both of these are vines and are in SE countries.
Rattan is like everywhere in my grandma's hometown we use it as whips when I was a kid.
So much of work just for $10. U can imagine the pain.
That’s a Beautiful forest
very interesting. Didn’t know any of this
The fact that the voice of business insider lady is very clever.
asian kids trembling rn
10 dollars for 70 kgs is not "7 cents per kilo", it is 10$ / 70kg = 1/7 $/kg = 14.2857 cents per kilo.
We as a new business man are always in search of suppliers who sell at low prices but irony is that maximum time we don't find such buyers when we approach them for buying they are high on prices.
not just furnitures but rattan can have many other applications
Would think if the government limits the item then it should have gone up in price. Guess the problem is that the counties middleman or product producers have a monopoly to keep prices low.
The ban is only for raw or semi processed rayan, which he is selling. The issue is that he doesn’t have the means of processing his ratan, and thus is unable to sell to foreign countries.
However from a country perspective, the ban is probably good as it forces oversea corporations to invest in local production, instead of using Indonesia for cheap raw materials and doing refining elsewhere.
@@franklee8032 yeah imo it is good, if it was entirely free market then Rattan would just extinct.
But thr government should try to regulate the prices, because that farmer's earnings of 7 dollar a day is criminal, i mean it is better to just farm other things.
Rattan has always seemed cheap and not too sturdy here
Also in Bangladesh
I love the fruit of rattan.
Pickled rattan fruit is so good and rich in vitamin C.
CORRECTION
7 cents per kilo is $5. It was 14.285 cents per kilo.
70 kg = $10
7kg = $1 or 100 cents
100 divided by 7 kg = 14.285 cents per kilo.
Well I'm not up on prices but the reason the chairs were very common in homes was because they were inexpensive the same way people used to buy waterbeds because of their price.
Yeah, it was good back in the days, you can sent your child to a uni or build a house from just making rattan furniture.
But now ? The international market squeeze the farmer to get a cheaper price and the local government didnt bother to help either.
Nice video.
Rattan objects are so cheap in the Philippines it is often substituted for plastic bags (in the wet market when you buy veggies they give you rattan baskets coz it costs less than a plastic bag). Amazing its so expensive elsewhere.
Rattan chairs in india can cost between 20 dollars to 70 dollars... !!!...
So strange what kind of things end up in demand.
It's just wood.
It's just wood? Tell that to an agarwood harvester or ebony wood supplier. They'll laugh at you.
Rattan-made furnitures lasts a lifetime, and then some. Hence the much higher value.
Alexander
You have no idea
What your talking about it
good that it's so expensive nowadays, it's saving so many young kids from getting beaten with it
Very interesting.
For us having rattan furniture is very common. In my childhood we had an lounging armchair and an entire set of sofa made of rattan. Now we just have a very few pieces