If an apple a day keeps the doctor away, what do mangoes do? Well, they get you to the nearest mandi to get some for yourself!
Its mango season once again, and true to its taste, gulabari and safedi aam are in the thelas being sold at 50/- to 60/- per kg (atleast thats what I am getting in Gurgaon!). Now the thing about fruits is, no matter what the vendor quotes, you would go a notch lower when negotiating about the price. So I set out to understand about the business of Mango selling.
I roamed around my nearby Mandi talking to fruit sellers, trying to understand their sourcing, pricing and competitor strategies, and ended up getting one free Mango for myself as a gift!
So in Delhi, all the mangoes come through the Azadpur Mandi where all the fruits are sourced to the big distributors. (The current ones are coming from Gujrat & Maharashtra region). This is one of the biggest mandis in north India catering to the whole of Delhi and nearby villages. The Price of the fruits are the lowest in this mandi, monitored by the fruit association. They have a day wise price of the fruit depending on how old the fruit has been in the market.
The smaller mandis source their fruits from this mandi, and hence, their prices are higher. the fruit sellers source their fruits from both the mandis. This is because of the transportation cost. The sellers who are further away from the main mandi source more from the mandis closer by, and go to the main mandi once or twice a week. This is because of the superior quality of the fruit that is available there as, obviously, the older the fruit gets, or the more it is transported, the quality keeps going down.
There are two kinds of mangoes which are sold in the mandi – Raw and Ripe. The ripe ones are at a lower price while the raw ones are at a higher price range. This is because the ripe mangoes quality deteriorates while the raw ones are still in their growth stage, and the quality gets better with time. The sellers want to dispose off the one which has the tendency to go bad much earlier than the once which are still good. Hence, the lower price. A perfect example of a product life cycle!
Back to the sellers we deal with.
With the mangoes in their thelas and stalls, the fruit seller sets his own rate for the mango. This is completely dependent on the cost at which he has bought the mango, and not on any fruit association. He would start with a price of say Rs. 70/kg and then would lower the cost a bit the next day, depending on the quality of the fruit. They source both ripe and raw mangoes. they let the raw ones ripe with time, creating inventory for the next day, and emergency purposes.
The fruit seller is also a very smart guy. He sometimes, also sets the rate according to the customer. If he thinks the customer will pay more, he would hike the price for him, and then lower it for the next customer. Hence, it always helps to bargain with the fruit seller instead of buying at the price he is selling for. The cost also varies with the time of the day. Late in the night, when they are closing shop, they would sell the fruits at a lesser price just to make that extra buck.
Interestingly, if there are two sellers on each side of the road, their prices are usually consensual if they have a regular stall. If the fruit seller has a thela, he does not care what price his competitor is selling. He can move his thela to any location and start selling, and there would be buyers walking on the road asking how much he is selling for!
However, in the end, no matter what the price, nothing beats a juicy ripe mango!
FYI: If you are having mangoes right now, Safedi mangoes (complete yellow ones) are good for shakes while the gulabari ones (the ones with a reddish tinge) are best if u want to suck the juice out of it. Recommended by a fruitseller of over 40 years of experience. 🙂
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