Interesting to learn that 50 years ago South Korea’s main export was human hair. How times change! Electronics is obviously far more lucrative.

These days, whilst most human hair comes from China, a lot comes from the Indian sub-continent. A large quantity of Indian hair, which is valued because of its European like texture, comes from temples - Hindus shave their hair off as a sign of religious devotion.

But did you read about all those girls and women in India who have been forcibly having their heads shorn to make weaves and extensions?

You may think it’s not a great hardship but in most cultures long and healthy hair is valued as a thing of great feminine beauty - so not very pleasant for the poor ladies concerned.

Of course none of this would happen if not for the huge worldwide demand for these hair pieces. Pop stars, models, the rich and the famous all want to look even more glamorous by attaching strands of hair to their natural locks. Many black hair styles depend on the use of hair extensions. Think of all the wigs that are used, whether for vanity, medical or religious reasons.

There’ll always be a need for hair pieces and until the artificial ones match the quality of the natural there will always be some poor woman walking around bald.

There are a variety of human hair products and trade leads on the trade portal (though none of them are from India they are all from China). Take a look:

Long 100% Human Hair
Human Hair
Human Hair Extension

Blow these creatures up and they’ll walk around as if they’re alive!

They come as a range of different animals: Dogs (including Corgi, Retriever, Terrier, Dachshund, Shiba Inu), Cat, Duck, Dinosaur, Pig, Tortoise and Fowl.

Submitted by wly111 who is based in Hong Kong, their $1.50 per unit price tag should see a whopping profit for the canny Ebay seller (similar items are selling for ~$10.00 on www.ebay.co.uk !!!).

The latest changes are up and most of you will be pleased to be able to market your products at last. We know you’re limited to only 2 products at the moment but eventually more will be allowed on a subscription basis.

Both company profiles and products have to be approved before they go up (like Buy and Partner leads). This is to stop people spamming with inappropriate information. We should really extend this to Sell leads as well - hopefully if/when we get more staff.

It’s nice to see that most people are submitting images with their products - here’s an interesting one: Green Life Mud Crabs, submitted by liveseafoodpng who is based in Papua New Guinea.

Apparently Papua New Guinea is one of the most diverse countries on the planet with over 850 languages - the population is under 6,000,000!!!

The country’s exports include a variety of minerals (oil, gold, copper), timber, agricultural product (palm oil, yams, coffee, cocoa) and, as liveseafoodpng has shown, fish products. Machinery, chemicals and manufactured goods are amongst their main imports.

People and governments everywhere are becoming more aware of the harm we are doing to the planet by our over-consumption and waste.

At the same time the rising cost of energy is making consumers take a harder look at their energy demands and usage habits.

These two factors play a part in the growing interest in renewable energy and energy saving products, especially in the west - the EU for instance is committed to increasing the use of renewable energy sources.

Anyone marketing such products is surely on to a good thing. Glancing through some recent trade leads two catch the eye:

• Energy saving street lights, from a trader in Macedonia, which apparently save upto 60% of energy costs
• Wind generators (350w - 20kw), from a couple of traders in China, - one of them also has wind-gas hybrid and wind-solar hybrid generators (useful for times when the wind is still)

We’ll be keeping an eye out for other examples of green products.

“Chicken floss has choice of original golden flavour, golden seaweed flavour, golden sesame flavour and golden spicy flavour. We also have beef floss and fish floss in different flavours.” - so says one of our members matdengdeng who comes from Malaysia.

Ok, so it’s not dental floss!

But I’m not sure that describing meat as ‘floss‘ is going to attract consumers. Any guesses on which is the floss in that image? I reckon it’s that white strip going across the bun.