New York - Who needs repeat custom?

In my short time spent in New York, NY, I noticed a lot of odd things, many of which were the way they did "business" around there parts.

I liked the spicy hotdog ploy because it was at the very least quite sneaky, subtle and clever, However my encounter with the rapper 5mics in Times Square was a great example of why you don't always have to be subtle, you can just...bully people into buying your stuff.

America is a large country with a large (in many ways) population, point being that there are SO many people that to a certain extent you can just forget about repeat custom as being an issue, as long as there are enough people who will buy off you once, especially if operating on a small scale. Times Sq is a great example of this, Mr 5mics stands there all day "selling" his CD, by intimidating probably exclusively tourists/idiots(me)/people that don't like the idea of gang beatings, but so many people pass through there each day that will never return, whether they buy anything off him again is immaterial. Consider this if he gets 3 people an hour to pay his recommended retail price of 20 dollars..that's 60 dollars an hour ($480 if he worked 9 to 5...115,200 if he works the average working yr in hrs), and considering his cds are home made and printed I would guess his only overheads are paying his "crew" to be near by.

I think I'm going to start a rap group...anyone in?

New York - Hot dog SHAZAAAAM

I’m usually not a huge fan of buying meat products off people on the side of the street, especially from a dingy little shiny box (did it once in Spain, my stomach didn’t thank me for it), but there was something about the humble hotdog stands in Manhattan that proved irresistible. In my five days in the big apple, I developed somewhat of an addiction to hotdogs and all the strange ingredients within.

Over those few days of munching my way through those hotdogs I developed a certain amount of respect for them in a business sense, it seems they had developed one of the most ingenious business plans for maximising sales EVER (might be exaggerating)

The first part of their plan was to just be…EVERYWHERE, you might avoid one or two stands, but after a few blocks of walking the smell would take hold and you would have to buy one, after all it is just there on the side of the street right?, how convenient

The second part of their killer plan was the product itself. The first time I went to a hotdog stand was with my friend Alex, he bought one dog, then enjoyed it so much he bought another, this time though as a reward they gave him an extra big one (perhaps a reward for his loyalty?), the second dog was however, spicier than a spice girl and within seconds Alex was forced to buy a coke or else his mouth would probably implode…BRAVO.
They might seem like innocent weiner men…but you must beware, they all hold MBAs from Harvard business school.