Clive Simpkins
Years of recession and the new reconstruction-and- development-programme spirit have bred a healthy clutch of street intersection entrepreneurs — but buying from them is not for the incautious or the unwary.
The bunch-of-flowers brigade are particularly slick operators. I recall a businessman friend of mine with all the Seigel-Sand-nous that comes from eastern-block Yiddish ancestry, stopping to buy a large bunch of lowers. The price, at R5 for the bunch was a steal. However, as the traffic light changed, the vendor pocketed the money and separated the actual bunch from the four bunches he’d been holding together and my friend, cursing with admiration, found himself the proud possessor of four roses.
I recently bought a pack of plastic garbage bags at R20 for 100 bags from a street vendor. This offer is good value when compared with supermarket deals, but they don’t fit a standard garbage bin. The vendor presumably wasn’t aware that his “job lot” of garbage bags were rejects or “seconds” dumped on him by some businessman.
The most significant — perhaps I should say penetrating — experience I’ve had was my RDP-supporting purchase of a jumbo-sized, hygienically sealed pack of ear buds. I go through three buds a day and the pack looked just the thing at R10 for 300. I thought I was getting good value while nurturing the spirit of free enterprise.
Two Sunday evenings back, I hopped out of the shower in anticipation of an ear-dry with a cotton bud. Instead of the usual tickle, there was a click and a scrape. The bud head had broken off in my ear. As they say ‘n boer maak ‘n plan, so I knelt on all fours — confusing the heck out of my dogs — and proceeded to shake my tilted head vigorously. The bud refused, no pun intended, to budge.
Not having the guts to call my GP or my ear, nose and throat guru on a Sunday night, I headed off to the Sandton Clinic emergency room. It was quite embarrassing being sandwiched between a dislocated shoulder and a threatened miscarriage with something as mundane as an errant earbud.
The procedure was over in a flash and cost R140. For the same amount I could be the proud possessor of 4 200 ear buds at RDP prices — a four-year supply. But, because they are made from inferior, solid-shaft plastic, they pose a hazard to whoever uses them. The commercially branded ones have hollow or flexible plastic tubes as shafts, which might bend, but cannot break.
I applaud the burgeoning number of street markets, vendors and people earning a living by selling flowers, hangers, electronic bric-a-brac and ear buds. But is it too much to ask those who supply these struggling ingenues with merchandise, not to use them as a dumping ground for reject and dangerous merchandise? This would be true RDP spirit and a marketing win for all in the supply chain. If the dumping doesn’t stop, inferior products and a bad reputation will eventually wipe out their market.
SPORT