{"id":151,"date":"2014-03-05T10:00:50","date_gmt":"2014-03-05T09:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/?p=151"},"modified":"2016-10-27T16:33:52","modified_gmt":"2016-10-27T15:33:52","slug":"lagos-street-vendors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2014\/03\/05\/lagos-street-vendors\/","title":{"rendered":"Lagos street vendors"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Lagos<\/a>
Lagos street vendors<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I have the opportunity to observe Lagos street vendors<\/strong> in action on my daily ride to school. At one round-about which is particularly jammed, dozens of them offer drivers all and any kind of products<\/strong>: ceiling brushes, soft drinks, clocks, CDs, flip-flops, chewing-gum, underwear, posters, soccer team flags (including that of Bar\u00e7a F.C.), magazines, windshield wipers, you name it, and they\u2019ve got it. <\/span><\/p>\n

At the next roundabout, fruits and other food items are most popular.\u00a0To the casual observer, this looks like a random, non-organized activity.\u00a0 Yet, as it turns out, <\/span>street vendors are one link in the traditional distribution system<\/b>.<\/p>\n

After a few days observing vendors and their activity, I started wondering “Where do they get the items for sale?<\/strong> Are these defective items that they can sell at a lower price? What’s going on here…?<\/b>” I learned a bit about street vendors’ organization from Uchenna Uzo<\/a> \u2013 a “Prof” (as they call professors here) in the Marketing Department at Lagos Business School<\/a>:<\/p>\n