If you’re familiar with the Nigerian roads, then you’re obviously familiar with the relentless activities of street hawkers. If you live in Lagos or any other major city in Nigeria, then you can really relate to the scenario below:
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You’re stuck in traffic on a hot afternoon. Cars are at a standstill, horns blaring, tempers rising. Then, from nowhere, a young man weaves his way between the lanes. He’s balancing a tray of chilled drinks on one hand, waving a bottle of water with the other, and shouting, “Pure water! Pure water!”
Within minutes, everyone is calling out to him from all corners and boom, he’s made sales, moving from car to car.
Now, if you’re someone who doesn’t really pay deep attention to things, it’s easy to dismiss this kind of scene as mere survival hustle. But if, like me, you look closer, you’ll see one of the most practical lessons in business strategy you’ll ever find.
Many of the street hawkers may not have degrees, investors, or fancy offices, but their ability to survive and thrive in harsh conditions is something I believe every entrepreneur in Nigeria can learn from.
Just before I go on to share some of the business strategy lessons I believe you can learn from them, let’s first try to understand what business strategy is.
What Is Business Strategy?
Simply put, business strategy is about positioning your business to win. It’s the set of decisions you make to develop and package your products or services, attract customers, stay relevant, and sustain your business over time.
While it isn’t a term that most street hawkers know or use, what they do daily is a “business strategy”. Their marketplace is unpredictable. There is no guarantee that the weather won’t disrupt the market choices for that day or that there will be slow-moving traffic, yet they adapt and keep selling.
So, what are these lessons?
1. Adaptability Is Key
When you see these street hawkers, they don’t wait for ideal conditions. Rain or shine, traffic moving or at a standstill, they adjust quickly. If the sun is scorching, they bring cold drinks. If it’s raining, they sell umbrellas or nylon covers.
What can you learn from this as an entrepreneur? Adaptability is a survival tool. Markets will always change, customer preferences will always shift, and a government policy can disrupt business overnight.
2. Go Where the Customers Are
Street hawkers don’t sit in one spot hoping people will find them. They carry their products straight to where they know the demand is: in traffic jams, markets, and bus stops. By doing that, they reduce the friction between themselves and buyers.
In business, visibility is everything.
Even if your product is the best thing after sliced bread, if you’re not where your customers are, you’ll struggle. The hawker understands that one of the secrets of business success is being able to take the product to the people.
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3. Master the Art of Flexible Pricing
Have you noticed how a hawker can size you up in seconds and immediately quote a price based on their perception of you?
The same bottle of water may go for ₦200 in a danfo bus and ₦250 when you’ve waved at him from an air-conditioned SUV.
Some even offer discounts if you buy in bulk.
This isn’t random; it’s a strategy. They understand market segmentation and adjust pricing to maximise profit.
As an entrepreneur, this will teach you that a one-size-fits-all pricing often leaves money on the table. Learn to segment your customers and have different product offerings and prices for each segment.
4. Persistence Builds Trust
There’s something about seeing the same hawker every day on your route. Over time, you begin to recognise their face, their call, their product.
And with time, you may become comfortable buying from them that you almost always look out for them. The truth is, familiarity breeds comfort. And that’s one thing that businesses often underestimate.
Marketing isn’t about going viral once; it’s about showing up so often that people begin to associate your name with reliability. Hawkers win not just because they sell, but because they are there, every single day.
5. Lean Operations Keep You Alive
Street hawkers usually don’t take on unnecessary overheads. They don’t rent expensive shops, hire large staff, or sink millions into unnecessary costs.
Their focus is on what moves the business forward: buying stock, showing up, and selling.
And that is what lean strategy is all about. Focusing on what drives revenue and cutting unnecessary expenses. Many businesses have shut down because they grow costs before growing consistent income.
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Concluding Thoughts
You may think strategy is about PowerPoints and sophisticated tools. But the truth is, business strategy is about understanding your environment, knowing your customer, and positioning yourself to win, and these are exactly what street hawkers do every day.
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