DARE - Because Entrepreneurs Do

A short halt at a traffic signal and you are virtually in the middle of a market with shabbily dressed salesmen selling items such as books, flowers, dusters and toys. Who are these people and how does this street business go on?

He wears ragged clothes, has mud and dirt smeared in patches all over his clothes and sports a curious look on his face.

The light turns red and he has exactly 180 seconds to scurry along a beeline of cars, buses and auto rickshaws and go about selling his products. His area of sales—200 to 500 meter of pitch and asphalt packed with vehicles; and his target audience—any interested or inquisitive soul packed inside these vehicles. Welcome to the marketplace at traffic signals!

Who are they?
The typical seller at a busy crossroad is likely to be a migrant rather than a local. Most of them find shelters in shanties, which are close by to their area of sales and others make for their shelters at the traffic signal itself. While some have been selling at these signals for over seven to eight years, others have just arrived and are around a week or a month old. Yet some more act as fillers, as they are looking for some part time jobs or have taken up an alternative profession in selling at crossroads once they have run out of contracts with construction companies as laborers.

It’s not that these sellers have suddenly dropped on from nowhere, but most have had some member of their family or for that matter some peers already working at these signals at one point of time or the other. Often the longing for migrating to a city and finding work brings these sellers from their far off villages. On other counts it is the recommendation of their peers and family members that get them to the city streets for selling products. Having said this, there is an uncanny resemblance to the stories of these to that of thousands that migrate to the Gulf or Canada on similar work recommendations.

One of the shocking truths about these sellers is that most of them are below the age of 18 years, which according to Indian laws is child labor. "I feel bad for the little kids who work out here, but at the end of the day everybody is making a living by selling their own kinds of products. Everybody is a separate business unit. We don’t interfere into what others are doing or how things are done; neither do we have room for a conscience call. It all boils down to your daily bread," says an elderly man who sells products at the IIT Delhi crossroad and who wouldn’t reveal his identity. Even a kid who is barely four feet and looks hardly 12-13 years old to the untrained eye maintains that he is 18 years old.

What do they sell?
If you thought activities at the traffic signal comprise begging and selling magazines, you will be astounded with the range of products exchanging hands. Among the things sold at these junctions are toys, accessories, refreshments, books, dusters, and seasonal products So, if you happen to be developing a headache out of the intermittent traffic snarls, you would find a harmless yet persistent seller selling a strange head massager or if you have run into trouble with your sweetheart, you would find yet another person selling a bunch of roses or heart-shaped balloons.

One can find newspapers and magazines besides novels that are as recent as the Twilight series or as classic as Gone with the Wind, sold at the best bargain. And you have a person selling dusting cloth. And not just that, one has the choice of buying steering covers, Chinese-made multiple mobile chargers and sunscreens.

When it comes to toys and children, you are most likely to find nodding dogs, inflated footballs and Mickey Mouse balloons, plastic hand pumps, battery-operated devil horns and so on. Chewable tobacco, fruits and salted peanuts too are on sale.

How the business works
Business at crossroads is as simple as it can get, saving a few carefully taken business decisions and secrets.

For most of these sellers, the products they sell are supplied by a third party. For example, a magazine or newspaper seller has his supplies met from an agent who runs the entire business and maintains the fleet of sellers. DARE spoke to one of these agents who revealed that he charges the company Rs 175 per day per boy. Out of this, he pays Rs 100 to the seller, who also stands a chance to pocket a commission that can be a maximum of 30 percent of the cover price of the magazine. So, the more he sells the more he earns.

So, if we take ten boys who have the capacity of selling ten magazines a day and consider a magazine which sells for Rs 25, the agent is charging the media house Rs 1750 per day for ten boys. He now pays Rs 100 to each boy as his daily wage, which totals to Rs 1000 per day.

The Rs 750 (Rs 75 for ten boys) he is left with is further reduced to Rs 500 after deducting charges for sub-agents, mobile, conveyance and other sundry expenses. Given this and considering his sellers are selling for 20 days a month, the main agent can earn up to Rs 10,000, by simply selling one magazine. Add to this a number of other magazines and the figure will go up to a fat sum sans tax and other liabilities.

As for the seller, he can earn Rs 100 plus Rs 7.50 as commission for every magazine that sells. So, if he works for 20 days and sells ten magazines a day, he can earn up to Rs 2,000 as daily wages along with Rs 1,500 as commission, totaling to Rs 3,500. His earnings can go up if he is selling costlier magazines that have cover prices of up to Rs 100 as his per copy commission goes up. However, the agent reveals that the sale of the magazines mostly depends on the news content on the front cover than on other things.

The story is a bit different for another set of sellers who buy their products from whole sale markets that sells toys and plastic products. Pintu Gupta, who sells car steering covers and mobile chargers, says he buys his products from a wholesale market and then sells it at a profit.

Another seller, Vinod Kumar Gupta, who sells sunscreens says, "I have been selling goods since the last 12 years. I started with newspapers and magazines and now I have graduated to my own business. I procure raw material, then manufacture these goods on my own at my residence with the help of my family."

When it comes to margins, here is the strategy. Says Pappu, a migrant from Rajasthan, who sells balloons and plastic footballs, "My margins are dependent on how good I sell. If I buy the toy for Rs 20, I try my best to sell it for anywhere around Rs 35–Rs 40. If the customer is bargaining hard, it sells at a meager Rs 25, but if I use my skills right and convince him, I even end up selling it for Rs 40, which earns me a profit of Rs 20. For toys, I generally target small kids or their mothers, if they are at the window side. This increases the chances of my sale at a higher price."

For Pintu Gupta, the seller of car accessories, business depends upon the amount he slogs. "On good days I end up earning up to Rs 800–1000," he claims. (Given that he works 30 days a month and has at least ten days of bad sales or no sale at all, he can still earn a maximum of Rs 15,000–20,000 of non-taxable income!)

The territories of these sellers are strictly marked and passed on through the years. For example, in a four point crossing, one bunch would be selling magazines and novels, the other sells toys and yet another would be selling flowers or balloons. On an average a seller works for seven to eight hours a day, which might start from 10 am till dusk and it is not necessary that he’ll stay at one traffic signal. When it comes to choosing a product to sell, the seller typically goes to the wholesale market and gets advised by the local shopkeeper on what the latest trend is. Accordingly, he picks and chooses and so you get to see different products at crossroads at different points of time.

So, he may be without a formal dress and nicely polished shoes and devoid of a neat haircut but the next time you meet him at the crossroad, be rest assured he means business!

< Prev		Next >