Not an Easy Road: A vendor makes his way around St. Ann's Bay selling his wares.
FOR NEWSPAPER VENDOR Garnet, a change in his business location was a mere few hundred feet away. But it made all the difference.
"Me did deh up near de supermarket," the Kingston 19 vendor said, "but since me shif' come down hereso things much, much better."
So much better that he has increased the number of newspapers he orders twice in the last eight months.
"Up there so (the old location) is a busier road, cause is a four road. But yu fin' sey people cyaan really stop a de four-way. Is jus a rush ting. Here so now (where the road from a major housing development comes onto the main road) people can pull over an me deal wit' them," he said.
While Garnet did not use a term like 'building a relationship with the customer', he points out that "me have more regulars. Is like people start know me now an' ask me fi all hol' a Sunday paper fi dem."
Leebert and Sharna make a business partnership of their relationship, selling fruit from a pick-up. Business picked up after they relocated to a regular spot near a high school, also in Kingston 19. "You find that the 'schoolers' love them apple and them pine and so on," Leebert said. "Like when them going to school and when them coming back, we busy, busy," he said.
Although the students are not allowed to come out at lunch time, Sharna says they do not move around much because it takes a lot to pack up and then unpack the fruit (which bruises easily), and they are in a spot where they are not harassed.
RELOCATION
"We did near off Constant Spring Road before an people complain sey we a mess up de place an a bring fly, an same time some yute like dem waan tek a set. Waan come eat every day like sey a dem yard an no waan pay," Sharna said.
Dorette's temporary 'cookshop' has moved more times than she can remember. "Anyweh de place dem a buil' an' de man dem deh deh mi deh deh," she said. Currently, she is set up near Barbican and does a brisk business with cost-effective, down-to-earth meals.
Moving is not much of a problem; in fact, often it is the men on the site who knock together the boards that constitute the shop and, with coal and big pots, she is off and running.
"It betta dan fi stay one place," Dorette said. "Dis way me deh which part me can line up how much fi cook. An me deh which part de man dem get pay, so Friday day time dem jus' deal wid me," she said.
Do
you have a problem? Is something bothering
you? Write to