Hello friends!
This is Hemant.
Our modern-day lives are heavily dependent on many macro-economic factors outside our control. For example - the US dollar goes up, we see exports decreasing. While at a macro-level, these may sometimes give an impression that it is just numbers that are moving, these things affect our lives in many ways.
Today’s story is about one such struggle, where one part of the supply chain affects the other adversely. This one is about a person who finds an opportunity in such a crisis. Read on!
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⌚Reading time - 4 minutes
The opportunist
Outside the Santacruz Railway Station in Mumbai sat several small shops selling everything from food to clothing to electronic gadgets. Frequented by lakhs of people every day, a railway station was a merchant’s dream. no need for fancy marketing gimmicks – all you had to do was sit at your shop the entire day and the customers would come.
But because of the prime real estate, the competition was high. The same goods or services were sold by tens of traders across the street. The richer ones owned shops, while the poorer ones had either thelas or occupied space on the floor.
Life was full of hustle, but everyone needed food.
And there was enough for everyone. With the Vada Pav stalls for the working class, sandwich stalls for the young college kids, restaurants for families, and ice cream shops for the late-night cravers, there was enough food for everyone.
Arpan had set up his own thela in a small bylane by the station. Whoever smelled the delectable fried food he served couldn’t resist coming to the stall. One such person, who had now become a frequent customer, was Arun. Arun ran a vegetable stall near the station. He brought vegetables from the larger market before dawn. Since he had to leave home early, he never had breakfast at home. Arpan’s KaandaBhajiya Paav (onion fritters wrapped in bread) was his staple breakfast at this point.
Soon, the two got involved in a business partnership – Arun now supplied the onions, potatoes and the green chillies to Arpan, while Arun continued to enjoy the Kaanda Bhaji. Arpan bought fresh vegetables from Arun every morning before setting up the stall. He didn’t pay Arun daily. They settled their dues at the end of every month. The arrangement had worked well for the last five months.
Today morning, like any other day, Arpan arrived at 6:30 am. He started cutting newspaper into small squares so that he could serve people food on them when he noticed an article. Markets were expecting a shortage of onions in the next few weeks, and the government was considering importing onions to avoid the shortfall.
“Not again!” he thought. This scare had happened to him last year too when he barely managed to be profitable with the rising onion prices. If he increased the cost of his food, very few were willing to buy it.
He turned towards the vegetable stalls. Some other vegetable vendors were already there, but Arun was not. He was expecting people to show up at his stall in half-an-hour, but he decided to wait for a bit before going to another stall to buy his daily supplies. He decided to use the time to clean up the oily dirt sticking near his small stove.
Arun arrived minutes later. He came back with bad news. No onions for the day. Arun even mentioned that it was being predicted that for the next few weeks, there would be a tremendous short supply of onions. Onion fritters amounted to at least half of Arpan’s daily business. He had no choice but to go to another vendor and buy onions. But vegetable vendors had already increased prices. He had to buy onions at ₹40 per kg, against the ₹30 per kg he bought every day. A 33% price hike!
Arpan went back to his stall. Throughout the day, he was very careful in using the onions. He ended up using almost half a kg less than his usual requirement.
But that was not enough to sustain the coming onion draught. The prices rose to ₹60 in a couple of days. Arun stopped selling onions entirely, even though others in the market were still selling them. Arpan was confused as to why Arun would do so. On asking, he never got a clear response from Arun. It was always, “Oh, I couldn’t reach the market in time; today I didn’t have enough cash to buy onions; and so on.”
Arpan couldn’t afford to sell the Kaanda Bhaji at the same price anymore. Instead, he focused on convincing his existing customers that they should try the potato fritters instead of the onion ones. He partly succeeded, but people mostly loved the onion ones.
He asked people whether they would be willing to pay double for the kaanda bhaji, but people turned away. Everyone liked them, but no one wanted to pay double the price. For Arun, who had gotten so used to his kaanda bhaji that he couldn’t eat anything else in the morning, he was clearly feeling the loss.
“But how was it that you stopped getting onions earlier than others?” Arpan asked him once again.
“Well, I don’t know, the traders… they didn’t give onions to me. They were out of supply, they said.”
Arpan was not convinced. “Please do something. My business is hurting seriously. I make almost half of what I usually would.”
“Arpan bhai, I…” Arun paused, “I can’t survive without your kaanda bhaji. Please find a way to bring it back. I am having serious health issues because of it.”
“Sorry, I can’t help.”
Arun realized it was time.
“Well…” Arun picked his phone and spoke into the phone. He looked serious now. “How many kgs do you need every day?” Arun asked, turning towards Arpan. “5. I can work with 5 every day,” Arpan responded.
Arun spoke into the phone for a few seconds before cutting the phone line. “Can you pay ₹40 per kg and give me free bhaji every day?”
Arpan didn’t need to think to say yes. This was the best deal he could get.
Arun whispered into the phone for a few more seconds, before turning towards Arpan.
“Okay, please make sure you don’t tell anyone that I am selling these to you. you’ll get the onions delivered every morning.” Arun whispered.
As he walked back to his vegetable stall, Arun smiled. He knew this problem was going to come up one day, so he had started hoarding onions from a long time ago. He had been stocking onions before the prices went up from the regular ₹30 per kg.
He was able to ensure a higher profit with the added perk of free kaanda bhaji every day.
THE END.
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Thanks for reading :)
Hemant
P.S. To read more about why I’m writing this story collection, go here.