SLC26-W3 | Street Business Diaries: Street Cobbler, Mobile Accessories or Street Clothes."

^{designed in canva}

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have ever since been categorized as the backbone and chain connecting the poor and rich. It is that nucleus that degenerates into the celebrated multinationals. Though not all are known to scale up as anticipated, the fact remains that they are the lifeline of every economy.

In my region which is categorized under the commercial nerve centres of the country, SMEs are scattered all over the place. My state is one of the biggest hubs in the region. Therefore, I meet them everywhere, and there without scouting. I will be giving us true and life experiences and observations of these businesses.

01 What type of daily necessities business is in most demand in your area? (Street Cobbler, Mobile Accessories, Street Clothes,, etc.)

I will be writing about a phone accessory shop, which is the most demanding in my region. Several intriguing factors made this thrive within my region, and they are not far-fetched. Mostly they are triggered due to government failures in certain areas, as well as human insatiable needs and tastes.

An ideal accessory shop comes with multifaceted items. It is primarily dominated by phone parts like casing, screen guards or protectors, chargers, earpieces, and pods (wireless), etc. In it, we have MP3 sound system players, noiseless ear pods, rechargeable lanterns, power-banks, OTG cables, flash-drives, etc.

In fact, this is a multipurpose outlet that attracts human traffic in them. It is either one is coming for charger cables, USB flash drives, power banks, or just something else. People come in to buy different accessories for personal purposes.

I mentioned earlier that some of these reasons are due to government inefficiencies. We have seen a little surge in the purchase of rechargeable items like lanterns and power banks. The use of these items is simply because of a lack of adequate power supply, hence, people seek these items to support living.

02 Have you bought these yourself or visited them? Show pictures + videos and show their prices.

I have bought these items countless times. Sometimes they wear out or get damaged from the wear and tear or human error while handling. Sometimes we get them fixed, but other times, they are damaged beyond use. So we have to keep their purchases active to avoid gaps in our personal activities.

Some of the items I have purchased from this shop include a power bank, a rechargeable lantern, phone charging cables, ear pods, an earpiece, etc. Some of them have been replaced while others are still in their first purchase status.

Item	Price Naira	Steem Value
Power-bank [20k mAh]	N18,000	85 steem
Rechargeable Latern [300 watts]	N8, 000	38 steem
Charger Cables	N7,000	33 steem

03 What is the quality of these products? Also, if you have any experience with how long they last, please tell me.

There are a few times I wasn't too lucky. This wasn't the fault of the seller but rather the manufacturer's. Some of the items are seen with factory errors. They fail just after a short while. Why I said it isn’t the seller's fault is because the same item and brand have been acknowledged by other users as their best purchase, and you can see them use this product.

Fortunately, the captured items have been in use for months without any form of default. They have served me perfectly well. I remembered going to make my reviews to the seller, and she was really happy this time. She has known me to be unlucky in the use of power banks. But it was a different story this time.

04 How do people behave towards street vendors? (sympathetic, ignoring, bargaining, etc.)

Like I mentioned, my city is a commercial one, and the issue of street vendors is the new normal in the neighbourhood. There is nothing like being sympathetic or ignoring, but rather being viewed as hardworking ventures that are there to make a living, rather than engage in illegitimate deals.

In bargaining, the prices of items are negotiated. most especially for those in the phone accessory shops are likely uniform. Their profit margins are unlikely to be contestable as being affordable. So the bargaining process is a little less problematic for all parties.

One thing we must know about small and medium enterprises is that, they are the life wire of most economies. They are mostly the starting point of most big companies we know their names today. They are characterized by low financial transactions and also marred by poor funding of the financial institutions and government support.

#steem-atlas map location [//]:# (!steematlas 5.1099375 lat 7.3684375 long d3scr 67 hosiptal road Aba)

Google Map Location