If you are old enough you’ll remember the “mielies” lady on television, with her bag of mielies balanced on her head, shouting all over the show for attention. Of course for those who grew up in the township or are still living there, she was no extraordinary sight; mielie and grass-broom ladies in the township are as common as hip young people who expose their underwear under baggy and saggy pants. Those ladies are in fact, a pointer to a country obsessed with enterprise. We sell any and everything, to any and everyone. People sell African soil to homesick expats living in the US and UK. We sell grass (as per proper dictionary definition people!) to each other, broken cars to our in-laws, and chicken kebabs outside of clubs at night.
In South Africa anyone can be an entrepreneur, anyone can literally stand at a corner and sell something, be it a newspaper, a sandal, fruit or the nation’s favourite, hangers. The one thing I’ve always wondered about as far as hanger merchants are concerned, apart from the question of who their wholesale supplier is, is how do they pick their preferred spots of trade? I mean, you’ll be approaching an intersection and see one with two packs of hangers on either arm. Plastic hangers, steel wire hangers, blue coloured, white, yellow, red, all sorts. Now I understand about keeping your clothes shapely after ironing, but hangers? Is this all we are able to source and sell? Next thing there’s another guy with exactly the same merchandise right next to the first guy. And another one, and another. A whole street full of hanger traders with only one thing on their minds; selling you as many hangers as they possibly can. Mind you, hangers are not exactly perishable. You buy a set and 23 years later chances are you’ll still be using the exact same ones. It could be that you are part of a cult that collects hangers. Or perhaps you buy and also sell hangers at a profit in your spare time when you leave the suburbian office park where you ply your trade from 9 to 5.
I have seen similar from fruit vendors who line up the same type of fruit along a stretch of road without any sort of differentiation whatsoever. Mangoes? “I’ve got a pile over here, so does the guy sitting next to me. And the guy sitting next to him. We bought our fruit boxes from the same market, and apart from the fact that he is slightly shorter than me, we are basically trying to sell you the same thing at the same price. I guess if you like the look of my pants better than his t-shirt you’ll buy my mangoes instead of his.” It’s like petrol stations, except there, the difference lies in the quickness and accuracy of service. Like I said before, if you can find a friendly corner where no one will “compete” against you, you have a shop. In some upmarket streets of Johannesburg for example, traders sell mirrors. Not small, make-up in my handbag type mirrors but full-sized, fit-in-the-lounge framed mirrors. Mirrors are not cheap mind you. So you drive down the road and suddenly feel this sensation as if the whole of NASA is looking at you. Brightness like you'd only see inside Einstein's brain. Mirrors all around. How do you know which one to choose? In fact, what will make me leave a shop at a mall that specialises in selling mirrors, to go and buy one on the street where it may have been sitting for two days in the sun and rain (some traders don’t take them home with, they just chain them up for the next day)? And spend what, upwards of R950? I don’t know. Do the guys accept IOUs, cheques, credit cards or debit cards? Can I apply for credit and pay it off monthly?
In most metro cities in Mzansi you can pretty much buy anything on the street. The usual include food, clothes, small pieces of furniture, black rubbish bags, cell phone accessories, DVDs, newspapers and so on. Salons have cropped up under makeshift tents on pavements in city centres where ladies get their braids done or have their fingernails cut and polished. Sure some of the stuff is not exactly legit, but any streetwise consumer should be able to tell a genuine Rolex from a “made in a chop shop” Bolex. I see a day when you can even buy a house on the street! I suppose you can already do that if you have a laptop and a wireless connection, and you are having coffee outside a restaurant. That's Mzansi for you.
In South Africa anyone can be an entrepreneur, anyone can literally stand at a corner and sell something, be it a newspaper, a sandal, fruit or the nation’s favourite, hangers. The one thing I’ve always wondered about as far as hanger merchants are concerned, apart from the question of who their wholesale supplier is, is how do they pick their preferred spots of trade? I mean, you’ll be approaching an intersection and see one with two packs of hangers on either arm. Plastic hangers, steel wire hangers, blue coloured, white, yellow, red, all sorts. Now I understand about keeping your clothes shapely after ironing, but hangers? Is this all we are able to source and sell? Next thing there’s another guy with exactly the same merchandise right next to the first guy. And another one, and another. A whole street full of hanger traders with only one thing on their minds; selling you as many hangers as they possibly can. Mind you, hangers are not exactly perishable. You buy a set and 23 years later chances are you’ll still be using the exact same ones. It could be that you are part of a cult that collects hangers. Or perhaps you buy and also sell hangers at a profit in your spare time when you leave the suburbian office park where you ply your trade from 9 to 5.
I have seen similar from fruit vendors who line up the same type of fruit along a stretch of road without any sort of differentiation whatsoever. Mangoes? “I’ve got a pile over here, so does the guy sitting next to me. And the guy sitting next to him. We bought our fruit boxes from the same market, and apart from the fact that he is slightly shorter than me, we are basically trying to sell you the same thing at the same price. I guess if you like the look of my pants better than his t-shirt you’ll buy my mangoes instead of his.” It’s like petrol stations, except there, the difference lies in the quickness and accuracy of service. Like I said before, if you can find a friendly corner where no one will “compete” against you, you have a shop. In some upmarket streets of Johannesburg for example, traders sell mirrors. Not small, make-up in my handbag type mirrors but full-sized, fit-in-the-lounge framed mirrors. Mirrors are not cheap mind you. So you drive down the road and suddenly feel this sensation as if the whole of NASA is looking at you. Brightness like you'd only see inside Einstein's brain. Mirrors all around. How do you know which one to choose? In fact, what will make me leave a shop at a mall that specialises in selling mirrors, to go and buy one on the street where it may have been sitting for two days in the sun and rain (some traders don’t take them home with, they just chain them up for the next day)? And spend what, upwards of R950? I don’t know. Do the guys accept IOUs, cheques, credit cards or debit cards? Can I apply for credit and pay it off monthly?
In most metro cities in Mzansi you can pretty much buy anything on the street. The usual include food, clothes, small pieces of furniture, black rubbish bags, cell phone accessories, DVDs, newspapers and so on. Salons have cropped up under makeshift tents on pavements in city centres where ladies get their braids done or have their fingernails cut and polished. Sure some of the stuff is not exactly legit, but any streetwise consumer should be able to tell a genuine Rolex from a “made in a chop shop” Bolex. I see a day when you can even buy a house on the street! I suppose you can already do that if you have a laptop and a wireless connection, and you are having coffee outside a restaurant. That's Mzansi for you.
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