Castries has always had its ever-growing share of vendors, hawkers, hustlers and street side/sidewalk/pavement or arcade stall-handlers, all loosely-referred-to by almost-everyone-else as ‘vendors’ -\ and the references usually more about the myriad problems they cause or get blamed for, as their numbers swell in a shrinking city space.
The press and public references – by politicians, political aspirants, party hacks, critics or established businesses – are always about ‘vendors causing problems’: their goods occupying sidewalk spaces meant for pedestrians, but now actually-distressing everyone-else, their opposite interactions with locals and visitors, attitudes to each-other and why ‘it’s time’ they be ‘dealt with’.
Now more-than-ever, the louder complaints are about ‘vendors’ accumulating sky-high debts they eventually don’t pay, or claim they cannot; ‘vendors’ being discouraged (by politicians and political aspirants, especially when elections are approaching) from paying-up their accumulated arrears stretching over years – and with the expected excuses from their associates and associations.
No one actually tells them not to pay their arrears, but the custom (over decades) has been that some politicians and aspirants (on both sides) do promise to give amnesty on vendors’ debts – especially ahead of General Elections — to earn or keep their votes.
Just last week, it was disclosed that the latest accumulated debt write-off for Castries vendors was a whopping $17 million, but some who benefitted from that amnesty have reportedly chalked-up as-much-as $10,000.
Their association expectedly claims its members cannot pay their latest accumulated debts because of COVID – which also affected everyone else, including the City Council’s earnings and Government revenues.
Also affected by COVID are other businesses (micro, small, medium and large) also depending on sales, but which don’t benefit from regular debt-forgiveness and simply have to find ways to pay-up – or close-down.
But not in Sweet Saint Lucia, where vendors can always expect political bale-outs without ever having to consider being arrested or bailed-out for breaking the most important rules of business — paying debts.
The politicians and partisan mischief-makers who claim to have vendors’ interests at heart will always happily recall selective anecdotes about broken promises while engaging in willful amnesia when it comes to acknowledging the new vending booths and/or the larger and better premises constructed near the Government Printery and the old Meat and Fish Markets opposite Massy’s in Conway.
However, arguments apart, not all ‘vendors’ today are the same, as their nature and ways differ, many taking roadside or sidewalk vending to the next level in these new times.
On any Saturday, Castries sidewalks – especially in but not limited to the areas between William Peter Boulevard, the Castries Market and Jeremie Street are overtaken by vehicles hawking imported packaged foods and household products.
Also on the sidewalk hustle are well-established small and medium-sized business owners who can afford their own independent outlets elsewhere, but prefer to compete with small vendors and occupy three-quarters of sidewalk spaces to sell hardware-store items.
A Saturday walk around the City allowing eyes and ears to feast on the products and persons selling them, noting how they react to inquiries and sales but focusing on their products will reveal a wide new range of locally-made and properly-presented dry goods and beauty products, including soaps, hair and body liquids, local herbal teas and medicines, etc.
The range of people and the products they sell has changed considerably over the past couple decades and recent years, resulting in a completely new and very-different set of young-and-middle-aged micro-business entrepreneurs who’ve taken the sidewalk vending business to a new level.
Traditional vendors still hawk their wares by mouth, but more of the younger ones are using IT devices to advertise, from cell phones to electronic speakers to the internet, some also having their own Facebook and YouTube channels, as I discover every Saturday…
An increasing number and widening range of hair and body products is being produced by so-many young local entrepreneurs (mainly young women, but also including men) who line Castries sidewalks every Saturday with the most amazing range of goods labelled ‘Made in Saint Lucia’ – and from local products.
Some use traditional means of production while others apply international standards, but nearly all have personalized business cards, websites and online channels promoting their products 24/7 – including electronic card payment machines.
I interact with them every Saturday and I still recommend that someone should take-up the two-year-old invitation by then CDB President Dr Hyginus ‘Gene’ Leon and Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre, to local and regional youth, to apply for incentives to engage in local production and marketing of health and beauty products, using local ingredients, if only to earn more and help reduce the related import bills – and to offer better and healthier, locally-produced goods on pharmacy and supermarket shelves and hotels.
I also always enjoy getting silent inductions into the new way today’s upward-thinking young business-minded vendors do business.
For example: A shirt caught my eyes, so I inquired ‘How Much?’ and when the young lady behind the tray below Blue Coral told me the cost, I paid.
She then wrapped the shirt and placed it in a multi-coloured plastic bag – and asked me: ‘What’s your WhatsApp number?’
I asked ‘Why?’ – and her reply bowled me over: ‘To add you to my (online) channel…’
And when I opened the plastic bag the next day to try the shirt on, it also contained an enveloped card saying: ‘Thank You for shopping with us!’
‘Now,’ I thought, ‘This is class!’
I’ve recalled these lovely moments from my regular Saturday sidewalk shopping strolls, if only to make the point that a new crop of young entrepreneurs has emerged who’ve already-started changing the traditional way we see ‘vendors’.
Just think about it – and take a-good-look next time you ‘Go-to-Town’, because Something Big may be happening before our very eyes, but we’re just not seeing it as yet!
A new world is unfolding in entrepreneurial sidewalk vending.