Shop Owner Capitalizing on People's Inconvenience?

A small shanty shop is stacked in a fence on Ole Dume road, a few meters off Gitanga road. The shop is barely visible and one wonders why a person would set up shop in such a neighbourhood.

Bangladesh is an upmarket Nairobi neighbourhood and you would not expect this guy to have customers. But the truth is far from that.  All the people who live in the servants quarters are his clients. So are the masters of the homes. Interestingly, the two sets of people have different price tags for items in the shop.

The trick, the shop keeper tells me lies in the fact that the servants are the same people who run to buy emergency items from the shop for their masters.

Such things as pain balm, over the counter paracetamols, candles and others attract up to Shs. 10 more when they are bought by the rich home owners of this neighbourhood. When the children are around too, he makes good money by selling sweets and cheap chocolate bars because "they just keep buying the whole day." He says weekends are his best times and he makes good profit. The sales are sometimes not high but when he does, the shop even performs better than some in high populated areas where competition for customers is high.

So if you had not thought about it, set up a small shop, mama mboga stalls and such (in compliance with City council by-laws of course) in one of the leafy neighbourhoods and harvest from the philanthropic neighbours. They need your services, at a premium.

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