Hope Nester is what one might call a veteran vendor. For more than 25 years, she has been offering various types of goods and services – clothing, food, beverages, shoes, perfumes and, more recently, cellular phone ‘top-up’ services to customers.
Over time, she has established strong bonds with her clientele that have kept faith with her. No less strong is the bond that she has established with the Institute of Private Enterprise Development (IPED).
Speaking with Stabroek Business last week she exuded the persona of a small business operator who had eventually convinced herself that she was ‘going somewhere.’
When the Institute of Private Enterprise Development (IPED) made its 2012 Annual Report public last week, Nester’s name appeared among the list of awardees. Her citation read “Best Micro Enterprise Project”.
The “Best Micro Enterprise Project” is Nester Fashion situated at the corner of Hincks and Regent streets amidst rows of other stalls that comprise one of the city’s most popular arcades.
Nester’s journey is that of a woman who is under no illusions about the nature of business, particularly, the need to stay ahead of the competition. She has, over the years, become expert at buying stock – a pursuit which she believes is pivotal to vending success – whether it be at downtown wholesalers or from wholesalers and retailers in Suriname, Curacao, Trinidad and Tobago and the United States. Buying, she says, is influenced by choice, by asking oneself questions about customers’ tastes and answering them reasonably accurately. “Sometimes you purchase based on what people ask for,” she says.
It may not be a multi-million dollar enterprise but, according to Nester, she makes “a decent living” and the living includes attending to the education of her three children.
Her career as a businesswoman started in 1987, when, at the urging of her brother she began to journey to Morasi on the Essequibo and Springlands in Berbice to purchase items of food that were being brought across the country’s borders illegally and selling these in the city.
After the authorities officially relaxed the ban on imported items in 1991, Nester was compelled to look elsewhere for a living. She began offering men’s ‘dress clothing’, which she travelled abroad to acquire. The venture, however, was short-lived. In the wake of the relaxation of foreign currency restrictions, the established downtown trading houses began their own commercial importation of clothing.
It was at this point that Nester began street vending in earnest. She recalls that it was also at a critical interlude in her personal life. The sudden relaxation on foreign imports caught her with a considerable quantity of unsold stock and a young daughter to take care of. Shortly after taking up a position at the corner of Regent and Wellington streets – in the full view of a disapproving Georgetown City Council – she became pregnant and was compelled to “take a break.”
Nester’s decisive entrepreneurial turn occurred on 1992 when a friend, on the verge of migration, offered her the stall she had been occupying at Regent and Hincks streets. It was that offer that took Nester to IPED for the first time. She acquired a loan of $30,000. Perhaps, understandably, there was a measure of uncertainty arising out of her lack of familiarity with the procedures of formal lending institutions. She was required to submit to IPED receipts and pictures of valuables in her home that could serve as collateral after which, she says, she was surprised “with the ease” with which she secured her first loan. That sum was invested in ladies’ clothing and was repaid within the allotted period.
Nester is unsure about the criteria that secured her the ‘Best Micro Enterprise Project’ award for 2012 but surmises it may be associated with her commitment to growth and to honouring her repayment obligations.
Hope Nester has grown with her enterprise. She speaks with confidence about her approach to selecting and managing stock, catering for ladies who seek “a different look from the rest”. It is, she says, a matter of ensuring that what she stocks is not to be found in every store. Competitive pricing, she says, is invaluable to doing business.
It was, she says, her determination to “make a difference” that took her on her first buying trip to the United States last year. There, she was able to immerse herself in choices which the local stores could not offer. The visit to the USA served to significantly consolidate customer loyalty.
These days Nester replenishes her stock by visiting Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname and making selective purchases locally. She has also established an arrangement with an overseas-based Guyanese who supplies her with choice pieces from the USA. This kind of business arrangement helps her to have regular access to “different” types of fashion.
Nester, it seems, has become an institution in the Vendors’ Arcade. Even as we spoke with her she was interrupted, frequently, by customers with requests which she ably sought to attend to. She has, it seems, become a sort of parochial fashion advisor with many of her customers seemingly placing themselves in her hands. When we spoke with her last weekend she said that she was looking forward pre-Mother’s Day shopping.
Easter, August and Christmas as well the various major entertainment events are key periods for Nester Fashion. She explains that these events must be factored into her own business planning if she is to take full advantage of the seasonal increase in demand.
She talks too about her relationships with her customers. She tries to “meet everyone.” There are layaway plans for shoppers who may be “short”. The buyer is required to “put down something and pay the rest later”. There are no hard and fast rules regarding the payment period. It is a matter of what is mutually agreed to be reasonable. After paying the full amount the customer can take the item/s away.
Her current trading pursuits as much as her expansion plans are, she says, hampered by the difficulties associated with finding suitable workers. Vending, she says, is a pursuit that requires commitment and dedication and those traits can be difficult to find. As a consequence she is now compelled to run two stalls on her own.
Support comes from her daughter, Fiona whose responsibilities include the selling of shoes, socks, perfume oils and cellular credit. Nester’s focus is on clothing.
She says the business of vending continues to throw up challenges. “It has slowed down compared with five or six years ago,” she admits. Still, she presses on, keeping her head above water and doing sufficient business to enable her to stay abreast of her loan repayment obligations to IPED. Her most recent IPED loan – to help purchase goods for the Christmas season – was taken in December. She will complete repayment at the end of June. Further loans will be necessary if her expansion plans are to bear fruit. Her current focus is on securing more display space.
There is a sense of satisfaction in Hope Nester’s demeanour. Her hours of work are 09:00 to 19:00 hrs between Monday and Thursday.
On Fridays and Saturdays she extends her working day to 21:00 hrs. Her peak periods are in the evenings and she says that the strategic positioning of the Arcade in the vicinity of the Berbice and East Coast bus and car parks is a boon.
Nester believes the acceleration of the vending sector is a reflection of the accent on urban trading as a response to high unemployment. She believes that despite the growing numbers and the increasing competition “vending can be profitable”. It is, she says, a matter pleasing people. “It really is a matter of making everyone feel special,” she says.
