The Hindu Business Line : Street smart

You might miss the `ambience' or the courteous sales staff... but pavement shops, that delight buyers with their sheer variety and tantalising bargains, provide ample evidence of business acumen.

Chennai's T. Nagar is mostly associated with exquisite silk emporiums. However, Pondy Bazaar, Usman Road and Ranganathan Street in this area are equally important shopping centres, though of a different kind... From the woollens sold on street corners to the tiny pavement stalls selling toys, clothes, accessories, cosmetics and fashion jewellery, they have remained much sought after over the years.

Smitha Nair, for instance, has a rich collection of books and artefacts at home — all "bought off the pavement" and at exquisitely reasonable price. All over the city, from T. Nagar to Parry's Corner, Egmore or Mylapore, pavement shops selling everything under the sun are big business.

For home makers

The GST Road leads to the airport as well as to the pavement shops, close to the Military Hospital, that are a repository for exquisite ceramic ware such as coffee mugs, lamps and other knick-knacks; these can liven up any living space or office.

Looking for terracotta ware? Kodambakkam High Road, opposite Good Shepard Hall, is a one-stop shop. Along Spur Tank Road are available cane treasures that many brave the Cooum smell to get at. For those shopping for cotton curtains, Cotton Street off Pantheon Road appears like an endless bargain counter of unlimited variety, selling fabric priced between Rs 30 and Rs 80 a metre. Dress material, T-shirts and other readymades come at reasonable prices, backed by vigorous bargaining.

Book beat

And the pavement has its share of cerebral pursuits, too. Good old Mount Road — now Anna Salai of course — especially towards the evening, can warm the cockles of any book-lover's heart. Opposite the Cosmopolitan Club, the stretch from the Evangelical Literature Society up to Christ Church School, appears like an enormous, badly arranged public library. Among the books stacked against the wall, you can find a Roald Dahl for as little as Rs 10 or a Marquez for Rs 15. But then many of them are pirate editions.

R.K. Azhwar's shop at Mylapore's Luz Corner is nearly 20 years old and boasts of an impressive clientele, which swears that all you have to do is name a book, and you'll get it here.

Lucrative business?

The nature of this business is interesting. Most of these "pavement shops" are usually no bigger than a writing-table and are made of wooden planks boarded together. Setting up one such unit would cost Rs 30,000-40,000. Each shop stocks goods worth nearly Rs 20,000 and these are usually sourced from the busy Parry's Corner area. An investment of this scale fetches a monthly return of Rs 6,000, says Gopi, who "owns" one shop and has "rented" another. He pays Rs 1,500 rent. Some shops even employ assistants who earn a daily wage of Rs 100.

Talk to them, and you realise the intricacies of their business. "Since we sell textile, we can't diversify into accessories or footwear, or other businesses. Business is highly unpredictable. Some days we get Rs 100 (after all our expenses) and sometimes not even that. Especially after the tsunami, business has taken a heavy beating," explains R. Chandran, another shopkeeper in the same area. He adds that most of his customers belong to low-income groups.

Jamal, selling footwear, says festive seasons are the best time for them, besides the time when schools reopen for a new term. "We don't close shop even on Sundays, because we don't want to lose even the little business we get that day. Hence there are only four closed holidays in a year for us. Even then the going is very tough," he adds.

For Syed Moosa, who sells porcelain and clay dolls in the Mylapore Tank area, these are tough days. "I have invested Rs 5,000 for all these goods; the daily sales are Rs 250 and my profit is Rs 75. With this kind of business, I don't think I can carry on for long," he says.

Competition for him comes from hawkers who go from street to street. "Sometimes we are forced to borrow from moneylenders, who charge an exorbitant interest. And the chances of wastage and breakage are more in my line of business. There are times when I have sold my ware at cost price with no profit," he adds. His business peaks during Dasara. "My profit would be around Rs 200 then."

Credit facilities are beyond the reach of these pavement shopkeepers. S. Kumar works in a pavement textile shop at Besant Nagar and earns Rs 125 daily. "I have been in this business for seven years now. I want to start my own business. But nobody is willing to give us loans," he says. His shop does business worth Rs 4,000 a day. "We cater to a very limited crowd. Most people prefer Fashion Street in Egmore. Our shop, though, has a loyal customer-base."

As many of these shops exist on the fringes of the law, they complain of routine police harassment. Pedestrians often complain that the pavement shops clog up the streets. The bigger establishments object to their presence, saying they eat into business that is legitimately theirs by offering lower prices. But, as one pavement book-seller who stocks one of the best collections of Beatrix Potter and Roald Dahl on Anna Salai says, big shops like Higginbothams could care less about these street entrepreneurs. "They have stuff that we can rarely get our hands on, and they know that while we have our customers, we can't really eat into their clientele."

It is no surprise that in this age of plush malls and supermarkets, Chennai's street-shopping culture remains intact thanks to the pavement seller's tough business acumen. While cost is an important factor, these shops attract a wide cross-section of customers — from the nattily dressed software professional parking nearby to pick up a soap case, to the young mother-of-two picking up the umpteenth tiffin box for school.

Yes, the pavement shops are rooted in an earthy reality that finds little scope for indulgence in ambience orbusiness niceties. Sometimes the ware might appear unaesthetic or even tacky, but it can't be denied that they can certainly teach B-school grads a thing or two about surviving competition.

Shorn of all frills, the footpath shops offer a different shopping experience and, with a couple of bargains thrown in, a cherishing one too!

Picture by Shaju John

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