How to sell products like a “Waakye Seller”
Waakye is one of my favorite Ghanaian staple foods made up of cooked rice and beans. A healthier option will be to cook it at home but for some weird reason my preferred choice is normally from street vendors just because it tastes different in a good way! After a good meal of waakye, I thought of comparing how waakye is sold to some business principles. With the abundance of waakye joints I keep discovering, I wondered how they are able to stay competitive. There are 4 types of ways products are packaged to consumers, surprisingly waakye sellers have all four! Selling waakye must definitely be a lucrative business. I did some research and voila, let’s get into it shall we?
The Convenience Product
The first type is a convenience product, this is a consumer product or service that customers normally buy frequently, immediately and without great comparison or buying effort. Waakye, waakye stew and shito are the convenience products here, thats the reason why people will queue regardless of their status to get some waakye goodness.
The waakye is mostly served hot from a metal pan overflowing and covered with a transparent plastic bag so you can see the waakye sweating, seeing it packed up, your mouth will water. Fancy sellers will have the waakye in an ice chest. Next metal bowl you will see will contain the waakye stew, it’s tomato stew made with assorted proteins, immersed in the stew. It’s mostly used for different purposes like the gari and spaghetti and to give a mild taste to the burning sensation from the shito. Now this is literally the lit part of the package, it’s carefully prepared to make your tongue burn. You normally will get just a tipful of the spoon used to serve.
The Shopping Product
Next are the shopping products, they are a consumer product that the customers usually compare on attributes such as quality, price and style in the process of selecting and purchasing.
You’re presented with different accompaniments displayed in separate bowls to show their individual uniqueness and appeal. The most popular are:
- Cooked spaghetti teased with oil from the “waakye stew”
- A mildly wet mixture of gari (cassava shavings) mixed with the oil from waakye stew and sometimes garnished with spring onions
- Cut vegetables mainly consisting of shredded cabbage or lettuce, onions and carrots
- Assorted proteins ranging from fried fish, goat meat, chicken, wele and boiled eggs, amongst others.
You can buy them individually or a combination of all of them takes the waakye to another level. It’s important to know the right combinations per the your taste before you get to the seller. She doesn’t have time for confused customers.
The Speciality Products
One might think all the things mentioned above is just enough to stop buying but no, it doesn’t end there. Speciality products are consumer products and services with unique characteristics or brand identification for which a significant group of consumers is willing to make a special purchase effort.
These play on cost to boost the ego of the buyer, we have salad with cream, softly fried plantains and avocado(sometimes sold by a separate seller nearby). When you critically think about it, it’s for beautification and foodies who just can’t get enough of food. It makes the food tastes good and the added pleasure of a mouthful of richness just excites you as you eat your meal.
The Unsought Products
Lastly is unsought products, these are consumer products that a consumer either does not know about or knows about but does not consider buying under normal conditions. The beans from the waakye is cooked with hibiscus leaves, this can also be used to make refreshing drinks called Sobolo. It’s a healthier option and a good combination with waakye as compared to fizzy drinks which will fill you up. Water is mostly on sale as well to calm the fierceness of the shito.
Packaging stands as one of the ways they make money too. Waakye can be served in plantain leaves, a plastic bag or to a takeaway pack made from polystyrene or foil, you can also enjoy the experience by sitting on the vendors bench and eating from a bowl. You save money and you get fresh air, lol. Plantain leaves is the go-to for me, I sometimes feel the juices from the waakye and assortments gets an added taste from the leaves and it looks so pretty!
Customer Service
Don’t expect it but if there is a lot of people converged at the waakye vendor. You will have to repeatedly scream your order so the wrong thing is not given to you. It’s a beautiful mess after all the food has been assembled in your choice of packaging. Please note all these products listed above are sold under intense pressure from a queue of customers who are all in a hurry to go on with their day. Crossing lines, silently calculating the cost of people’s orders and staring intensely at the buyer in front of them wondering when they will be done with their purchase so they have a share of this goodness. If the waakye seller doesn’t hurriedly serve you then the waakye joint you’re buying from is not authentic!
Waakye sellers serve their customers with skill, the more consistent you are with the taste of your food the more returning customers you will have. Each product speaks for itself, but a combination of them is the bomb!I hope you learnt a thing or two about consumer products and you must be hungry for some waakye now? haha! Give yourself a treat and get some waakye today, till the next blog post…
Photo & Text Credit: Google
Lots of :-),
Lady-O
