Shopping Carts Made Here

North Carolina can beat China on distribution costs on certain items made here. I realized this after hearing about shopping carts last night. I attended the Harvard Business School Charlotte Chapter alumni meeting. The speaker was Pierre Arsenault. He is the President and CEO of Cari-All, Inc. They own Technibilt in Newton, North Carolina. This company makes shopping carts.

Pierre Arsenault led an interactive discussion on this industry. The main point that stuck with me was why the shopping cart is built in the United States and not China. It is shipping. Think about the packaging and transporting of the cart. So much would be air that it is not worth the price of the shipping. That makes up for the manufacturing costs.

This point also reinforces what I have said about the Charlotte region. Our main industry is not banking. It is transportation – the moving of goods, services, and people. We have always been a transportation area. If you doubt that go back to the Indians. The Cherokee came down the Catawba River and traded with the Catawba tribe. I have always heard that is the reason that the Charlotte square in downtown is Tryon and Trade streets.

The railroad plays a big part in transportation. My mother was from Lincolnton. She told me the story about the railroad that she had heard. The time was the 1840’s and they wanted to get the cotton from the South to the mills in the North. Here is what I remember. The train had to change locomotives every 160 miles. It was running from DC to Richmond. To run to Mobile, Alabama it needed a few more stops. The mileage was reached just north of Salisbury, North Carolina in a town called Spencer. Next stop was Greenville, South Carolina and then a little place in Georgia called Atlanta (now you know why Atlanta grew). The railroad could cross the Catawba in 2 places. The first choice was to run to the bigger town of Lincolnton but they said no. So the railroad ran through the smaller town that at that time was called Charlotte Town. The rest is history.

The roads play another part. I studied North Carolina history in the 7th grade. If I remember correctly (lots of years ago), Governor Morrison was the “good roads governor”. He connected all of the county seats (county government towns). Even numbers ran primarily East and West. Odd numbers ran primarily North and South.

We also have Interstates 85, 40, 95, 77, and 26. I grew up close to part of 85. It was the textile interstate for a long time. Now all of these interstates move a lot of freight and people.

Then there is the airport. We have flights all over the United States and to many parts of the world.

This region can continue to grow. We just have to keep going forward with what we do best.