Since the turn of 2007, analysts and economic experts have been making headlines via the major news media outlets as they reported their speculations and concerns over an international currency-based decoupling effect… a period of deflation… the general notion that the sky will come crashing down onto our heads at any moment… especially after the smoking-hot ‘economic miracle’ in China reaches its logical conclusion, that is. I don’t know about you, but I’m a little dizzy from it all.

That time might be now. I’m not talking about a devastating crash that sends the global market careening downward in a screeching mass of smoke and flames, I’m saying that the gradual – but impactful – cooling period following China’s double digit growth in the past years will be forcing more change upon us all. Wholesalers and retailers are especially sensitive to these changes, and there has already been a lot for us to think about, after seeing the rash of factory closures and bad press detailing the accounts of China’s warehouse and manufacturing bosses that essentially grab the company’s remaining assets and disappear into the night. This is usually followed by angry mobs of workers and other citizens who feel like they might be owed at least an explanation – not to mention some back pay – and it often results in incidents that involve the burning and overturning of police cars, torching government buildings, and even some brutal beatings of those unlucky people who didn’t get the memo from the boss to get your rear outta Dodge, pronto!

In China, most of the incendiary news is suppressed by the local media censors, but that’s okay because it’s also usually stretched out into a contorted and unreasonably over-analyzed series on the western front… as the China pundits argue to support the perceived wisdom of the CPC, and reactionary naysayers tear into them like rabid wolverines. Who do you listen to? What sources can be trusted? Perhaps it’s best that you should tune out the noise, and pay more attention to your customers. They have always been right about most things involving the trends, because they make the trends. They also have the buying US Dollars (British Pounds, Euros, RMB, etc.) that we are all interested in acquiring, and that means you should focus squarely on that which matters most: consumer reactions and responses to the news.

I’m not talking about the comments columns in mainstream media posts that are teeming with retorts from every schmoe who has had a bad experience; I’m talking about the seller sites and the Internet outposts that cater to the people who move goods from one place to another, presumably for a profit. There’s a lot going on, and you should be thinking about things like:

• Why Chinese juggernaut Alibaba is working on a massive program to offer credit to sellers who want to take a stab at the online sales game, and why this company is willing to invest its own (read: government subsidies) money in the project…

• Recent turmoil within the inner sanctum of medium-sized parcel operator Shen Tong Kuai Di, after making news on the QQ News site about rumors that they were flatly refusing online Taobao sellers the service of shipping their goods because they were driving the prices down during the gas crisis…

• The fact that the online gaming industry is practically a test bed for all cloud-based computing apps we’ll see coming down the pipeline, and why these games and their tech are being peeled off of the core programs, and implemented into the code of everything from games on Chinese webstes, to new mobile handsets that are sold on the streets, and through the online channels of distribution…

The list goes on, and I’m sure you’re aware of at least some of it.

Keep your eye on the vertical sites that cater to the ones who are part of this business, and their partners who use tools like toptenwholesale.com, manufacturer.com, wholesaleu.com, and offpricenetwork.com to keep the lines of communication open, and to find everything they need to know as they discover new ways to Find it. Source it. Profit!