Just this last weekend on Saturday, July 14th, the lot of us went to one of the biggest marketplaces in Accra. It was in the Osu region, and our professor warned us that it was a lot more intense than any other market we’ve visited thus far. That message alone scared a lot of us, and we came into the situation not knowing what to expect. Our instructor also informed us that we would likely be immediately approached once we stepped off the bus and they would try to whisk us away to their shops. Sure enough, right as I stepped off the bus a man in a bright neon soccer shirt and shorts walked up and started walking me over to his shop. The next hour or so he was telling me all this stuff like “Oh I want to create a friendship with you, it’s not all about selling, I want you to come back and revisit me after this is over” and so on. He ended up walking me through 10 different shops and I got one necklace that I probably completely overpaid for but it was cool, and I got out of there alive without having to be paraded around any longer.
This whole experience made me think about how crazy this market system is in Ghana and many other places around the world compared to what I’m used to in the US. The concept of essentially stalking someone as they enter a store and bargaining down prices or trading items for other items would never work in the US. It’s incredibly stressful for me to be in this sort of environment, I can’t imagine being around it all the time. However, I also wonder how Ghanaians would feel in the US marketplace to reverse the situation. Would they feel too overwhelmed or would it be relaxing for them? I have no idea, but the fact that markets can be so diverse across the world is a neat concept alone. The tactics in marketing between markets in the US in Ghana can draw similarities, but for the most part, they are wildly different. The crazy thing about the differences in marketing between the two countries is that they both still work. Just because I felt uncomfortable and stressed out in a market environment in Ghana, and I came out of it feeling gipped and cheated, that salesman still got what he wanted which was my money. Whereas American markets are so attached to well-known brands and designs that bargaining doesn’t exist in most places. In the US you walk in and more often than not we usually know the prices and what we are looking for in each market. Here in Ghana, we’ve never seen something like this before, and there’s no price or brand attached to it. So the market salesmen have a short amount of time to prove to the buyer why their merchandise is worth the price over their competitors. The whole concept of the markets here is fascinating in that way, but if I had to choose a calmer marketplace with a set price versus a bargaining market, I would have to stick with what I know.
