Recently, I relocated to Calcutta. While I’m happy to be closer to my parents, my roots – culturally, I find the place to be quite alien.
Nowhere is it more apparent than when you step into a shop to buy something. There is no concept of customer service. Indeed, there is no commercial orientation altogether. That does not mean shopkeepers are altruistic and want to give you things for free. They do not want to sell things to you at all. They are irritated if you ask questions about a product. The length of their yawns are often more than duration of your patience. Their mobile conversations seem to stretch longer when they have a customer at their doorstep. And of course, afternoon siesta is of paramount importance – doing business, making profit, earning a livelihood – everything else is secondary.
And of course, the issue of change (Khuchro, chutta) dominates commercial transactions. In most places, if you cannot produce the exact change, they will refuse to sell you things. If you produce a 100 Rs note after buying something of, say 76 Rs, - they may say you should have warned them in advance that you do not have change, in that case, they would not have given you the product. Suppliers are more worried about accumulating change, than selling their products. I wonder whether there is a business model possible – where you sell ‘change’ (Khuchro) for a premium – say you give small change for 90 Rs in exchange of a 100 Rs note, and pocket 10 Rs. Such a business model would work in West Bengal.
In retrospect, the obsession with small change is not surprising. After all, big money has eluded Bengal.
2 comments:
Trust me, I feel the same when I am in Cal even say for a week... But I also think that the behaviors of the Chennai common shopkeepers are also similar... What makes the shopping experience different in Chennai is the presence of more stores like Nilgiris... Think starting an organized retail business in cal might actually be a good business idea (assuming the ceterus paribus condition holds i.e. there are no bands and other political stupidities....). I kind of like Bombay for that, Even the chaywala knows customer service… What say?
I hope things are good at your end… Take care
Surprise surprise the model does exist. I know a person in lucknow who sells 98 one rupee coins for a hundred rupee note to corner shops etc!
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