Couple of months back, I saw something interesting on the streets in Mumbai, where women were selling some wares. Observed some more, and here it is...
Hot Shots
This tactic is visible in restaurants, mainly Udipi restaurants and also the steetside pavbhaji/tava pulav vendors in Mumbai. Does it happen in your city/town/village as well ?
The bhajis, specially the red coloured gravy ones: bhaji from pao-bhaji, veg kolhapuri, veg patiala, bhendi masala etc. are cooked using a mix of masala which stings on the tongue, and most of us eat food in such places when the temperature of the food is hot to lukewarm. This combination of hot taste and hot temperature confuses the average human being's reflexes: While eating such bhajis, ability to discern hunger and taste decreases, thrist, and eating speed increases.
This generally results in you eating a pao-bhaji quickly, not understanding how much of your hunger is appeased, and generally resulting in a side order of a carbonate drink like coke, pepsi, etc. When you have had pao-bhaji (or xxxx-bhaju) sufficient number of times with a cold drink, you are trained (like a domesticated dog), always ordering the combination.
This video explains a similar phenomenon observed in fleas and Indians :)
Double Trouble
This generally involves 2 women selling fruits (apples, custard apples, chikoos, whatever) or vegetables (corriander, methi etc.) near the railway station. You will see similar pairs in 'designated markets' but rarely in residential localities, where the seller and buyer have an almost daily interaction. Frequency of this is higher post 8 pm, when the buyer maybe tired, returning from work.
1 of the sellers will sit with only 4-5 apples and try to sell them ALL off to the first customer, supposedly at a discount. The buyer, that is you, will generally out of humanity, try to buy the 'last few items' thinking of relieving the lady to be able to go home. But rarely does the lady go home even after selling 'all' her wares.
There will be another 'last' set of fruits to sell :) . Both the sellers have the same supplier, selling the same fruit/vegetable and even divide the spoil equally.
Funnily, we rarely try to question, how is it that 1 lady has only 4-5 apples and the other over 30 ??
Moving Around
Any Wal-Mart clone (a supermarket, for the now very rare, uninitiated) located in a comparatively lower economic area (read, middle and lower middle class) will keep moving its wares around. Simply put, the huge range of colors tend to confuse the human mind. Because of the additional moving around, people 'see' more products, many forget what they are out there to buy, and end up buying up additional, unnecessary stuff. :)) Some part of the supermarket business is not of volume sales, but of confusion sales, which gets better for the supermarket if you have a child under 14 with you. The child will ensure that you buy atleast 1-2 unplanned items. Read more... Children Target Marketing.
Disappearing Act [the one which started it all]
Most of us rarely realise when the size of a biscuit packet or noodles is decreased by a few grammes, keeping the selling price the same. Worse, this is not limited to packed products. I got a taste of this when I ordered for pao-bhaji, which I was wondering, how the restaurant could afford to charge the same as it did about 6 months back. My question was answered when the order was delivered at home. The quantity was almost 50 %. I ordered pao-bhaji a couple of times more, just to confirm, and sure enough the container was a smaller one. :) Same price, smaller container.
Disappearing Act 2
I regularly buy vegetables from the local roadside vegetable vendor, and always wondered why some vegetables were barely available around 5 pm, but the baskets were full around 6 pm.
The answer, I was told is this: Vegetables which were purchased a day prior in the morning, were yet to get over, and while the other stock was lying right under the baskets, it made no sense to bring out the other stock. So even if someone asked, 'aur bhindi hai kya', the answer would be no. Atleast till these bhindis got exhausted.
Wonder if there will be campaigns against bhajiwalas, now the campaigns against auto rikshas has cooled off.
Fresh
Anyone who purchases milk knows, price ranges from Rs. 30 / ltr to Rs. 50 / ltr. Former for Gokul, Amul packets delivered at home, later for, 'fresh' mild from local dairies.
While I have seen many local milk dairies sell truly fresh milk, 1 milk seller just delivered 'cold milk' as 'fresh milk'. Simply put, a difference of around Rs. 8 / ltr.
So Sweet
Almost all of India, at 1 point must have experienced this transaction. A chocolate is handed over instead of 50 paisa at a grocery store or a super market. Apart from the debate over a forced sale, the grocery store gets a profit of 20 paisa. In short, the grocery stored gave you a chocolate worth 30 paisa, not giving you the full 50 paisa it owed you :))
Disclaimer: Most probably these tactics/strategies maybe something that MBA's studied, but MBA's constitute less than 0.01 % of India's population...
Comments