Economics

While Ms. Dzide, Tatenda and I were traveling around Ghana, I noticed a lot of people selling the same goods in very close proximity. For example, I bought some pineapple from a woman who was only 10 feet away from another woman also selling pineapple. I don’t understand how these two vendors peacefully coexist. I would assume that one would try to undercut the other in order to attract more customers. However, this was a phenomenon I noticed everywhere we travelled. When we went to the Kente village, store after store was selling the same fabric weaves As we drove through Kumasi, I saw sellers in kiosks offering packets of Milo next to two others selling the same thing. I noticed this same trend among “hawkers,” or the people who sell products while walking down the street. When we stopped at a traffic light and decided to buy a snack, multiple people approached the car to sell us the exact same plantain chips in a clear bag. When I asked Ms. Dzide about the multiple vendors selling fabrics in the Kente village, she told me, “People have their sellers.” In other words, consumers are purchasing products either due to personal relationship with the seller or product preference. When I asked my roommate Efia about the relationships “hawkers” have with their competition, she told me they all know each other. Yet they are still competing for business. Maybe it is just the uber-competitive environment of the American marketplace, but I can’t imagine this happening in the US. That multiple people can sell the same products in such close proximity and without any apparent strife to me is indicative of a more communal environment in Ghana than in the U.S.