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Go to a Football Game for the Boys Of Fall and for America

Lifestyle

Sadly, COVID is still with us, and the world has yet to return to completely to normal. In some ways, it likely never will. But the American fighting spirit persists, and we simply cannot let this foreign virus dominate our lives forever. Now, that doesn’t mean to throw all caution to the wind. It does, however, mean that we shouldn’t hesitate to return to pre-COVID activities as long as they can be done reasonably safely.  

Many people seem to be on board. Football is already better than last autumn, when the professionals eerily played a spectator sport in empty stadiums, and some college conferences canceled the season altogether. This year, the “boys of fall” fight on, entertaining us once again. Stadiums are packed to the brim with devoted fans. If you haven’t made it to a game yet this year, go. You will find it restorative to your faith in the American ethos. 

One thing you will also find if you make it to a college or professional football game this year: lot and lots of clear bags. If you expect to take items into the venue with you, the only way you are getting them in there is in something that is see-through. It may be a backpack, a tote bag, or even a little clutch. A more traditional cloth school backpack or hiking knapsack? Not going to happen. 

This means you have to be prepared. Make sure you head to the stadium on game day with your own clear bag. Otherwise, you will be forced to overpay to a vendor outside and either find storage for the bag you came with (or discard it altogether). If you do purchase one at the game, you will likely end up with the logo of the home team on it. That’s all well and good, of course, but ideally you want to use your clear bag when you cheer on your other teams as well. The best clear backpacks and clear tote bags are versatile, expressing your pride while not pigeonholing you into one particular fandom. 

That’s the idea behind our bags here at Expersion. We know that no matter what your favorite team is, you are certainly a fan of the good ol’ U. S. of A. and that you are proud to be an American. If your clear backpack has an American flag on it, you can truly take it anywhere. Our clear backpacks and clear tote bags both feature American flag patches, allowing you to display your patriotism. Furthermore, the patch on our tote bags is detachable, you can buy your favorite team’s patch and change it out when needed. 

So, in the spirit of college football (not really!) here is your homework: #1, get to a game, especially if you have not been in years. And #2, go prepared, and go for your country. 

Photo via Amazon

Why Don’t People Buy American?

Lifestyle

Are people willing to pay more for an American product?

For years, survey results have shown that somewhere between 70 and 80 percent of respondents will answer that, when given the choice between an American product and one from a foreign country, they will choose the one from the U.S.A. On these same surveys, the respondents claim that they are even willing to pay a little bit more for an American product. 

Industry insiders, i.e. the people who actually sell American products to consumers, scoff at this. While buying American sounds nice in theory, its practice is not borne out by the data. When it comes time to put their money where their mouth is, Americans will ultimately put up as little money as possible. This is why most of the best-selling brands on Amazon are based in China. 

But what if both things are true? What if Americans genuinely want to spend their cash supporting American businesses but also end up buying foreign goods instead? 

Hear me out.

What we have here might be a classic chicken-or-the-egg problem. The highest performing products on Amazon may be relatively cheap goods from China, which is an indicator that they sell better than American counterparts. However, that also means that those products are what American consumers see when they go to Amazon.com to make a purchase. Placement in search results is driven primarily by sales. If you search for a product on Amazon and all you see are Chinese versions of that product, those are the ones you are going to choose from. To update an old internet adage: “The best place to hide a dead body is page two of Amazon search results.”

So, Americans may really want to buy American products. But how is one to find them?

There is no good answer to this. There is no online rival to Amazon that only supports listings of American goods, nor is there a way to filter search results so as to only see products from American-owned companies. 

The best thing that you, as a socially conscious American shopper can do, is to help spread awareness of U.S. brands. 

Be vigilant when you come across American brands, whether it is in your regular Amazon shopping or somewhere on social media or even in your daily life. Support these brands. Talk up these brands among your friends.

By buying one product from an American company and writing a product review, granted, you will not single-handedly shoot it up to the top of page one of the search results. But at least it is a start. Furthermore, if you become a vocal supporter of that brand, both online and off, you can potentially set off a trend. Your first few ripples can result down the line in a big wave. 

Gandhi famously said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” If you support American companies like Expersion, you can play a small role in realizing that change. In an ideal world, customers will be presented with a legitimate choice between American companies and those based in China. And you can help make it happen. 

Why did we launch Expersion?

Lifestyle

The world is changing. Barriers that once seemed impenetrable—barriers of language, barriers of distance, barriers of financial resources—now seem laughably quaint as an entire “influencer economy” exists to fund jetsetting lifestyles with the profits of Chinese factories. This alone is not particularly novel—sponsored posts from “content creators” are a direct descendent of patronage of the arts. What’s new is the lack of transparency. Instead of wealthy and respected citizens funding artists, we have incorporeal entities, often without so much as a web presence to provide any hint as to their physical whereabouts. 

We want that to change. We support the influencer lifestyle. We think it is so cool that you can travel to the world’s most beautiful places and not be tied down to a desk at a daily 9-to-5. Whether this is actually your job or merely aspirational, we want as many people as possible to have these types of experiences. 

And we want them to have the equipment they need to make the most out of it. That’s where our products come in. Expersion gear is designed to assist you in all your pursuits. Unlike our competitors, who sit for 12 hours a day behind computers in China analyzing the latest “trends,” we design our products in America with Americans in mind. 

My name is Jack Kocsis, and I am a co-founder of this brand. We did not farm out our blog creation to some content marketing firm, and we don’t post under generic Anglo-American pseudonyms like “Scott Jones” (both common tactics of others in this space). We believe in our products, and we are willing to stand behind them in the public square. 

If you like our stuff, then please tell us! If there are things you think we could be doing better, we want to hear that too! We believe Americans should have a say in the collection of products available in the marketplace, especially when we are talking about products they can use to do really cool things. 

This is why we launched Expersion. As you can read about in our Mission Statement, Expersion exists so that you, dear reader, can “experience excursions.” You should be able to live your best life, a life that can properly be described as a 21st-century “American Dream.”

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