UGANDAN RETAILERS

“What’s there to learn from them?”

I know a general merchandise store owner who every time we converge, he reminds me of how his store is up for grabs, I am not a big customer of his in any way because most of the time I go there for a cigar and that’s it. I like him because he offers me credit. You know how addiction is.

Our last meeting prompted me to do a research on this issue. Ho told me he is opening up a branch in the same industry and he wanted me to find him someone seeking employment as an attendant. ‘But I thought you hated this industry and wanted to get out?’ I pondered.

At the end of my research I found that 85% of Ugandan retailers take the view that their business is always for sale at the right price. The few years I spent in the marketing industry I learnt something. EVERY THING IS FOR SALE. In other words a good marketer is able to sale just about any thing at a good price. It’s a good mentality in the marketing spirit but it has its own setbacks.

Ugandan retailers, with the marketing spirit that encourages a sale at any given time given a good price, are usually not interested in a achieving a business sale at that particular moment. They operate on the principal that if someone is ready to offer an abnormal value they would consider it.

This approach is a source of so many mistakes that many retailers in Uganda end up giving up their well groomed businesses for peanuts in return. Ugandan retailers do not know that a serious buyer with a serious interest will always be committed and will not give up until they really are unable to buy.
We have serious buyers in Uganda that spend a lot of time and money pursuing the purchase of businesses only to find in the last analysis, that the owner is not actually committed to selling it.
The Uganda retail industry is so piled up with many players that the most accessible buyers are always those in the retail business itself. With this big squeezed number of players, word quickly gets round about those businesses which are for sale, and in the same way if you are always not serious about going through with it, word quickly gets round  too.  In most cases by the time the retailer decides to get serious the chances of getting a good offer are so low, since many will not take them serious. In effect therefore, Ugandan retailers decide to get serious when they already have spoilt part of the market.
In business any product that stays on the shelves for long always raises many discrediting questions. Ugandan retailers do not understand that once the market knows that the business has been for sale for a long period, it’s perceived as 'damaged goods' and that potential buyers will suspect that there is something wrong with that business.
Being serious about selling when you decide to sell is important in all trade. Until then you need to keep your business off the market and don't be like our Ugandan retailers who are always for until you offer to buy them out only to realize it was a waste of time.