"Competition is Healthy for customer"

I got a taste of subject when I was at a railway station in hot summer last week. Since I was on vacation and traveled to southwest part of Maharashtra waiting to board a train back to Bangalore. I saw couple of hawkers selling cold drinks stored in a "bucket" with cold water (ice melted into cold water due to hot temperature) and my temptation to drink something cold arised. Before I could turn to them to buy one I saw a hawker emerging out of a shop with his goods and I resisted to buy from people who were already around thinking I could get "Chilled" soft drink from this gentlemen who is "just" out on his business.

When he arrived closer to me, I did a sign and asked "Do you have Thump's Up?". He replied "No, I have Pepsi." and handed over a bottle to me. By this time all other hawkers who were around me started giving close attention to our conversation realizing that "This customer was looking for "Value" i.e. chilled soft drink" and he didn't opt them as my preferred "vendor".

To my dismay I found that though he just emerged from shop to join others and is a new guy on business, his goods (cold drink in this case) were not "chilled" enough to kill my thirst. I replied "This is not cold enough" and by the time I finish my sentence 4-5 other hawkers flocked me to compete among themselves and trying to convince me that their "goods" are "chilled" enough. This action triggered a fight like scene among few and I was not surprised with this scene because of two reasons - first, as it was just beginning of vacation season there are not enough customers so competition was high and second in "hawker" business "customer" gets to choose his vendor and once customer finds there is no value in offered goods others can pitch in to do sale by bringing competition.

Couple of "wise hawkers" tried to cool the scene by adding "Customer has choose the "guy" (in my case this hawker) let the guy finish business and you have no right to interrupt in sale and bring additional competition here". In India most of "hawking" business also runs on "unwritten" rules and ethics and this was one example. To continue subject of post, I requested that I need a "chilled" soft drink as it is very hot and I was expecting from him same as he just arrived on platform to do business. For which he replied "wait" and went back to his shop to get me a "chilled" bottle for me which I purchased as it was closer to my needs.

What I found interesting in this whole episode is "Competition is Healthy for Customer" as in my case "hawker" spent some amount of energy to run back to his storage to fulfill my "needs" i.e. walking little "extra" mile to "close the deal" by brining me a "chilled soft drink" and fulfilling my need. Management guru's vouch for "Healthy Competition" as it is beneficial to companies as well, as companies would "innovate" in their selling cycle by being more competitive by bringing "value" (any) to table for customer to close the deal at same cost compared to others. Competition forces companies to strive for best with what they have, provide "value" to customers at "same or low cost" by embracing "innovation" in their respective product or service offerings.


One additional note, "Healthy competition" is always good, in above case it was healthy one else an "unhealthy competition" could have turned scene ugly among competing players.