TheSauerReport interview

'The response has been very positive. The report has been in existence in one form or another for 18 years and many of the subscribers have been following it throughout. They also welcome the fact that it is available at a very attractive price now due to the lower overheads.' In previous issues we have written about your departure from LeatherXchange in June. Can you tell us more about it? There is not that much to say. I left because I did not agree with the various decisions taken by my partners, the financiers of the company. My ideas about where the company should go and how were different from theirs. Are all problems between you solved now? No they are not. There are matters pending, one of which is about the breach of copyright of my reports. This matter is under investigation and in the hands of lawyers in Spain at the moment. I don't want to say more about it. We shall see how things develop. How many readers do you have now? That is one thing I shall keep to myself. I had some bad experiences with disclosing figures in the past. But business is developing very well for me. Don't forget there are not a terrible lot of changes for my readers. I have been writing market reports for 18 years now. The only thing that has changed is the organisation who publishes it. First there was the United Nations for 15 years, then my former friends in Spain and now I do it all myself. Many of the readers have been with me through all of that time and they could not really care less who publishes it. What they want is the best possible information at the lowest possible price. That is what they get now. I must admit the change of publishers may have caused some confusion. I don't know if I should apologize for that or if we can just call it the way things go. After all, my readers benefit from the changes. I can now publish a lot cheaper and further expand my report, coverage and services. Nobody is against more for less. Who are the readers of your report? Apart from the usual leather industry people such as traders and tanners, they include some of the biggest manufacturers in the world: cars, furniture, shoes etc. While they are not involved in the leather industry on a day-to-day basis, they spend millions of dollars in the industry and understandably are hungry to know what is happening there. Another part of the business is composed of associations, government departments, universities, libraries and statisticians. These all involve people who need the information to hand but are not actually involved in the daily business of the leather trade. Information from the reports has, for example, been used in arbitrations. Overall, the report has very different values for different people. What about your former LeatherXchange readers? I have never known exactly who they are and where they are. LeatherXchange never told me but a growing number of them simply follow the report and me. They come knocking on my door in ever increasing numbers and are, of course, most welcome. How do you see the competition with LeatherXchange who are continuing with their own report? It does not worry me one bit. This is business. The one who supplies the best report and the best service at the lowest price will win the game. And there is not only them, there are also others on the Internet and new initiatives can be expected. The rules of the game remain the same as in all trade. You have got to be the best. And there is only space for one in this market. Why do people read your reports? It is important for you to realise that it is neutral and independent and covers the whole world. I am not trading, not buying and not selling anything. There is no need for me to change news or prices to suit my own commercial interests! In this leather world where not everybody is always telling the truth (understatement), the report is often used as a beacon to go to when one is lost in a myriad of stories, prices and lies. There is a clear need for it. This does not mean, and I do not pretend, that I have the holy truth, that my prices are the right ones and my stories the only true ones. Absolutely not! I do not believe there is such a thing as one price for a hide or a skin or one truth to a story. Too many factors justify numerous differences. I collect, report and analyse what circulates on the market without changing the facts, logic or (often) illogic. Readers use it to form their own opinion and draw their own conclusions. I only give them a full toolbox. They take out what they need but still have to do the hammering themselves. The purpose of my reports is no more than giving people a neutral and independent impression together with my personal analysis of the situation in the world on a daily basis, in order to help them make up their mind; to supply them with a broader base to take commercial decisions. 'The more you know the better you trade' - is my slogan and a very logic one too it seems to me. Most people are dealing in only some of the many products, markets and origins in the leather world but lack a wider view of what is happening elsewhere. That is why they read my report. It tells them in short and for only €50 a month what is going on beyond their own horizon. The second most important argument for people to subscribe is to be able to compare. To know whether your own offers/sales/purchases are in line with the rest of the world. Whether you are not selling too cheap or buying too expensive and whether it is the right moment. The third reason is the price indexes and now also the 50 new price graphs which assist people in making prognoses and comparisons. There is a huge amount of information in each report. So to make things easier for the subscribers, I have taken what I consider to be trend setters among the world's hides and skins and placed them in graphs which show price movements over a longer period. This way the reader can see at a glance what the current price of, say, Kenyan goats is compared with what has gone before. Whenever one of the trend setting prices is updated, the graph is automatically updated as well. A fantastic system. Many subscribers are more interested in the trends than they are in the actual prices so they get an 'at a glance price guide'. The fourth reason is the personal assistance readers can get from me for the questions they may have, like helping them finding a supplier, buyer, agent, more information about a rumour, details about a product, etc, etc. What does a subscriber get for his €599 per year? A password and permanent access to the on-line report. You can see a sample report at [http://www.thesauerreport.com] which contains a mixture of market intelligence and hundreds of prices; an actual world overview and comments per country. In printed form it could be up to 70 A4 pages of information at any time so people only print out what they need. The way I work is that the moment news or prices come in, it is put on the web that same day. Thus there are changes and updates every day. The report also gives the 'Sauer Indexes' which reflect the global price developments of 54 of the world's most internationally traded hides and skins. The index is a figure (like a Dow Jones figure) for bovine hides, a figure for sheep and one for goatskins. These indexes have been widely used since their creation in April 1991. There are direct links (free) to the detailed USA export sales and slaughter figures; the UK slaughter details and to commercial company news from the world's leading footwear and apparel brands. I have just opened an office in Italy to deal with that important market and supply customised services. Possible language problems for instance can be dealt with there as well. There really is no other report in the world which offers you the same. But its value, of course, is different to each player in the industry. Why is your report different from the other websites you mentioned? The other websites in the field of leather have some things in common. They all look nice; they all cover the same subjects and they all bring the kind of news which is interesting but that nobody wants to pay for. You will agree mine is different.