It’s good that today we have learnt that no work is small if done with dignity. That’s why today we see Nepalese putting their hands on those businesses that were neglected before. This change in mentality has given birth to self employment and if the change takes the jet we soon will see its positive impact on our economy.
It’s the change in the mentality that has brought peoples into pavement.  The reason is not to beg but to earn, that’s why they started their small shops on the pavement of the busy streets. Most of these people started their shop to free themselves from the chain of financial dependency. The traffic of shops on the footpath of Mahendrapool, Chipledhunga, Prithivichowk and Srijhana chowk is increasing day by day as people have realized that these shops can fuel owns living.
When the pedestrian pass through these pavements of the busy streets, it’s like walking in middle of open supermarket as you get almost anything on the street. The product range is larger that the products available in most of the shops of Pokhara as you get from socks to electronic goods. One time I even saw a person selling mobiles on one of these shops.
Every shopkeeper knows that one has to sell himself/herself before selling any product. That’s why they are polite, humorous and always has guts to speak about their product. It’s their salesmanship and the product display that generates cash at the end of day.
Mrs. Phulmaya is a lady who has setup her shop on the footpath of Chipledhunga. She started her business 3 years ago with just Rs 7000 and now she has goods more than of Rs 50000 on display. Her turnover per day goes from Rs 3000 to Rs 15000 giving her an average profit of Rs 1500 a day. Now imagine how much she earns per month. Her earning per month exceeds the average salary of any officers in the government office. I asked her what is the biggest happiness that the shop has brought to her and with a smile of satisfaction she said, Now my children studies in boarding schools; that was my dream and this shop is helping me to hammer the dream to shape it into reality.  
The happiness of these shopkeepers has deserted the hike of profits from many other shopkeepers who have to spend huge amount of their profits on rents. Some shopkeepers have even gone to losses due to the high rents. According to them they face uneven competition from the shops at footpath as their cost of good are less in comparison to them. Most of their profit goes on rent and the payment of the interest that they took from the bank to initiate the business. Many times they even fail to make product differentiation and this led to a sharp decrease on the sales volume. According to affected party, the shopkeepers of the footpath stall have started to sell everything that is available on the regular shops and they too have the advantage of product display. Huge range of their product gets displayed to the crowd and many people prefer to buy goods at these footpath shops as they can deliver goods on lower prices.
Looking at the both facet I realized that the shops in footpath has a positive impact on our economy but it to have the root for an unfair competition. Thus the government should allocate a separate area for these shops instead of the pavements. This will make everyone happy from buyers to sellers.

Written By
Ravi Shrestha
ravi@pokharacity.com

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