I was looking for gifts for the boys when I was in San Blas a couple months ago, and in the small area set up for street vendors in that town I saw some little ceramic turtles that were perfect. They could lift the little tortoise shell and store money or rocks or tiny mismatched Transformer parts. So I asked one lady what she was asking for them. "Veinte y cinco" - twenty-five pesos each. I offered thirty-five for two. No. Okay, forty for two. No. Okay, thanks anyway. I walked ten feet further, to the next stand where a guy had the exact same turtles, and offered him forty for two of them. "Take them," he said, seemingly glad to be rid of them. As I left that area, I noticed at least five other vendors out of ten selling the exact same turtles.
Today I walked. I walked and walked, looking to buy some stuff. I need presents for the boys again, and I was also looking for a place to buy a cigar. The Hotel Morales has a great rooftop patio, and
I'm still hoping to have a cigar and a bourbon up there tonight. So as I'm walking, I find that each area I come to has literally dozens of stores carrying the exact same goods. Northeast of the hotel is the Linens District. East of the hotel is the Arts & Craft Store District, mixed in a little bit with the Glasses, Sunglasses and Optometrists District.
Southwest is the Musical Instrument District. Southeast is the Printing District. West is the Gold and Dollar Exchange District. And to the northwest lies the most interesting of all, the Catholic Occasion Dress District, where there are at least fifty stores (no exaggeration) all selling dresses for baptisms, First Communions, Confirmations (15-year-olds) and weddings. And shoes. Don't even get me started on shoes. Zapaterias absolutely everywhere.
I finally found the Teatro DeGallado, too, and as I approached it I entered an area I can only call Shoe Shine Plaza:
The plaza outside the theatre had no less than twenty-six shoe shine stands. During a busy lunch-hour in the plaza, I saw only one shoe shine seat being filled Oh yeah, and there was one shoelace stand that was disguising with shoelaces the fact that it was also a shoe shine stand.
Why not spread out? Why be a neighbor to someone who can just undercut you? Another issue is the response to slow business. Rather than getting creative with sales or lowering prices when things get slow, most retailers in Mexico seem rather to
raise their prices, apparently figuring that since they charge more they don't have to sell as much.
Is it a learning process Mexico is going through? Is it the retailer's fault, or is it the government?
The mall developers? I can't be sure, but I do know from looking around that the malls around here are set up for failure, with literally hundreds of tiny stalls seemingly designed for people just getting into retail. Many of those spaces empty and for rent. Very small spaces for very small inventories. Inventories that often are exactly the same as your neighbor's stall.
While a spreading out of the shops and more variety in the things they carry may help things, I think more than anything the culture needs a bit of self-examination. If the answer to everyone's financial future is simply to be a business owner, to import some crap from China and sell it on the street, then it would seem to me there are not nearly enough people filling other needs. Who's doing something difficult? Where are the dentist offices? Where are the investment houses? Who's seen the need for "Taco Stand Monthly" and is starting a magazine to serve that vast group? Talk about over-saturation... today I saw a parking garage that had been dual-purposed as a taco shop.
Yes, I'm lacking in objectivity because I'm not from here; I'm not even from a big city so I can't say whether the retail situation is much different in New York City. I'm educated, whereas many of the people trying to make it happen in their little stall may have very few options. I have no idea what benefits if any are given by the government to business owners, what the turnover is, whether it matters at all if they sell anything or not, really. Maybe occasionally lighting strikes and for some here retail truly is the path to financial success. I'm not equipped to provide the answers (or even a good analysis, looking back at what I've written so far) for the people of a completely different culture. I do know a bit about Adam Smith, though. And I know enough to look around and see that, given the similar inventory and the lack of serious buyers in most of the stores around here, something seems really out of balance.
