SHOPS

Reg Almond, Bardwells, Sheffield

2009-08-20T17:15:00.010+01:00

Reg has sold electronic components at Bardwell’s for 40 years. He works with his wife Jenny [right], who, along with her brother Rod, inherited the business from their father, who set up the business in 1944. Rod's son Chris also works at the shop. Despite saying he hates electronics and customers refusing to believe he doesn’t know how to build or fix something, Reg is an engineer by trade, knows his components and will try his best to satisfy hopeful, or technically adept customers.

A first-time customer looking for a replacement 60 milliamp fuse from his stereo’s tuner, had heard of Bardwell’s reputation for stocking all things electronic. He’d been told by a high street electronics retailer that if anyone's going to have that fuse, it's Bardwell's. Reg tested the fuse, confirmed it was “deceased”, and said anything under a 100 is not made anymore. So rare in fact, the shop's 60mA drawer was empty. They had some 80s, but Reg advised it wouldn’t be safe enough and suggested a 50 would do the job. Because the 50s are rare too, why not buy two? Total price 50p.

Reg says the shop could be busy with one customer after another, but in an hour they might only take a tenner, as some items cost as low as 25p. It’s tough to earn a living from the shop nowadays – they've not had a pay rise in ten years - because people don’t buy electronic components like they used to. Reg offers up two cultural shifts as root causes. Electronics isn't taught in schools like it used to be and cheap Chinese imports are flooding UK shops. They used to get loads of school kids coming in, buying stuff for projects they would build, but now it’s cheaper to buy new rather than fix things.

Bardwell's has survived because they’ve diversified their stock to include TV and Computer accessories. They also sell online (Bardwells are ebay Power Sellers) and they also take orders through their website (www.bardwells.co.uk).

J & B Hats'n'Things, Pitsmoor, Sheffield

2009-08-20T17:00:00.012+01:00

Hanging out at Philip Biki's shop, you can feel the warmth. Whoever walks into his shop will be sure of a kind welcome and an open mind. Whether it's searching through the floor-to-ceiling shelving to find just the right hat or bag, or talking through life's ups and downs and putting the world to rights, Phil's shop is the place.

Phil used to have a stall on The Moor and loved it, all ages passing by and lots of chat. Moving to his shop on Ellesmere Road in 2001, he has seen 10 year-olds grow into adults and bring their own kids in. One such man came in with his two young sons looking for a hat - something "sharp and surprising" - and picked a black pinstripe trilby out of the extensive, eclectic stock.

If Phil doesn't have what a customer needs, he'll note the request in his diary, then when he’s got it in, will phone the customer to come and collect. Phil’s an experienced international wholesaler and takes regular buying trips to London, New York (where he buys from a big 6,000-outlet wholesale centre) or perhaps Hong Kong, Shenzen, or Guangzhou.

J B Hats’n’Things is all about a unique look. Friend and regular customer Val, told us that she (and many others) give Phil a budget to buy things for her, on his international trips. He knows her likes and dislikes and will always come back with items just for her. And they’re hers, there’s no way Phil would sell them, or anything similar, to anyone else. In fact, the shop usually stocks just one of each bag, coat, hat or pair of shoes anyway. Regulars know that if they buy from Phil, they won't see anyone else walking down the street in the same thing. Customers can also have their hats personalised by Phil’s wife, with beading or feathers, particularly popular for weddings.

Customers will go to quite some lengths to buy from Phil. One time we were in the shop, Phil received a phone call from a customer who now lives in Zambia and whose husband was about to visit her. This customer wanted Phil’s wife to pick out a hat for her husband to collect and bring to Zambia. Incidentally, Phil’s wife, having given so much advice and support in the shop over the years, is now studying psychology.

You can't really call a majority of the people in the shop, customers. Of course, they do buy from time to time, especially when the weather changes, but most drop in far more often, sometimes daily, because of friendship, the need to talk or perhaps for some local advice. Val says it's all about respecting people for who they are and being open. Another friend, who stops by on his way to University, said if the shop were to close, it would leave a huge gap in the neighbourhood.

Saleh’s Mini-Market, Spital Hill, Burngreave, Sheffield

2009-08-20T16:30:00.012+01:00

Saleh Hussein Abdullah started his business in 1996 and is now the longest-standing shopkeeper around The Green at the top of Spital Hill, Burngreave. Serving the Yemeni/Somali/Asian communities, he’s seen the area transform. Apparently, the neighbourhood used to have higher crime, but as more Moslem families moved in, the area has gained stability. Saleh says “It’s got a bit more problematic in the last three or four years, but it’s much better than it was in the 1990s.”

When he first arrived, the area used to be relatively uninhabited. There were lots of empty properties and the council would give prospective tenants a few sets of keys and let them choose which they wanted. But towards the end of the nineties, the housing stock filled up. Now, people can wait up to a year to be housed.

Saleh owns the building his shop occupies and business was very good up until a year or so ago. Recently however, his takings have halved. Saleh thinks this is partly to do with the recession and people being more careful, but also, there used to be 4 mini-markets around The Green and now there are 13, so there’s a lot less custom to go round.

Most of Saleh's trade is done on credit. Customers can accumulate up to £200 or £300 each and pay it off at the end of the month. He has a credit book in which he writes things down, but some of his customers just help themselves to what they need, (there’s a golf club in the shop, which is used to hook down boxes of cereal or rice from the upper shelves), then keep a note of what they owe themselves.

Occasionally, someone will ask for cigarettes or some Khat to chew and say they’ll come back with the money. He knows they probably won’t, but as it’s only a couple of quid, he’ll still give it to them to save a fuss. Most customers are local, but some come from afar. Occasionally they’ll even get Saudi Arabian students from Manchester driving over to Sheffield to eat in neighbouring restaurants, before stocking up on familiar flavours at Saleh's. The language of the shop is primarily Arabic.

If customers want something that he doesn’t stock, they will go elsewhere, but otherwise they are very loyal. When we asked why customers choose his shop rather than one of other 12, he replied: “I respect them and they respect me”. His friend agreed. “He’s been here the longest and he is trusted”.

NB: As was the case with almost every shop we visited in Istanbul, Saleh hospitably offered us a drink during our conversation, and gave us a bottle of mineral water each.

Accelerate, Attercliffe, Sheffield

2009-08-20T16:02:00.004+01:00

Debbie, Stuart and Edie are part of the Sheffield fell-running ‘tribe’, passionate about running up hills, down dales, along canals and up mountains.

Over the course of the afternoon we spent at the shop, Stuart takes us through a range of subjects from store layout, business development, how they are bucking the economic downturn, marketing, ergonomics, shoe design, the scope of the running community, and the importance of the cup of tea. He also explained why he needs cover the city’s football divide, stocking shoes in red (for Blades fans) and blue (for Owls).

The shop has been open a few months, sited in Attercliffe, an area close to the city centre, associated more with manufacturing and lap-dancing clubs than state-of-the-art sports shops. However, their building G9 is one of several ‘G for Gateway’ buildings owned by a local millionaire, who is investing in the area he grew up and hoping to kickstart an upward spiral. And as Stuart says, “the locals have been really welcoming and friendly”.

Of course, Accelerate offers what any good running shop offers – an excellent range of kit and shoes, with the equipment, experience and knowledge required to analyse gait and get a good fit. However, this shop goes a few steps further.

As customers enter, they are greeted with “hello, kettle’s on. Tea? Coffee?” Rather surprised customers wonder where the catch is but there’s no catch, just a warm sense of community formed by a shared love of running up hills in the pouring rain! They also let customers wear the shoes they’ve bought outside in the streets and will still change them if they’re not right.

Stuart and Debbie lead regular ‘Breakfast’ runs for their customers, an hour or so out in the area followed by coffee and pastries. The shop sponsors two local pro fell- and road-runners.

Beanies, Walkley, Sheffield

2009-08-20T15:46:00.007+01:00

L-R: Chris, Jan, Matt and Cath

Beanies is a co-op selling fresh fruit, veg and wholefoods from its current location on Crooks Valley Road.

The Co-op - Since 1986, they’ve built up a business that now supports 19 full- and part-time co-op members. Matt is the longest-running member, who joined in 1992, Jan joined a few months later. There’s a flat management structure where all the current 13 directors have an equal say.

Customers - From local households buying groceries for a week, to students buying two mushrooms, a carrot and an onion every day. Loyal customers travel from as far as Chesterfield, wanting to follow the ethics of natural wholefoods. They trust Beanies to have explored the food’s provenance, so they can buy what they want, without having to read every label.

Deliveries - They operate a box scheme, delivering organic fruit and veg across Sheffield. They’ll meet the most exacting of requests, such as including a pack of ground cumin (if a shopping list requests half a teaspoon of ground cumin!)

Suppliers - The co-op has built up strong roots with local growers, such as the kitchen gardens at Worley Hall. It’s even been known for Matt, who is a good gardener, to visit a grower and advise on how and what to grow and when to pick it. Beanies know what they can sell and advise what they would buy from a grower. They are soon to start selling bread made in their own bakery.

Economics - They are not sure yet about the affects of the economic crisis, because it’s always slower in summer, students aren’t around and families are on holiday. But they probably won’t be voting themselves a wage raise until they know what is going to happen. The post office, two doors up, recently closed and this has impacted how many people pop in.

Any fresh produce that’s past its best is sold off at a cheaper price. If still unsold, it becomes staff food. Then it might be given to people who come in to ask for food for their guinea pigs, iguanas, rabbits etc, then finally it goes onto a compost heap at a local farm.

Local community - Some locals have greater needs than others and those working at the shop do what they can. People might ask to use the phone because their electricity has been cut off, or for 20p for something, or sometimes borrow money from members of staff. It’s even been known for the shop to provide safe haven for someone at risk, or offer their van if transport is needed. These kindnesses can work both ways. For example, if a local saw a break-in at the shop, they might be more likely to call the police.

Beanies will try and help the community’s more vulnerable people where they can. They take shopping to people’s cars or carry it home for them if they can’t manage. One elderly woman would walk to Beanies but didn’t like the walk back to her empty house, for fear she wouldn't make it. So, each time, a member of the co-op would escort her home. Another woman couldn’t get to the shop any more, so Jan would pop in with a delivery each day during her lunch break. Tea and biscuits developed into a long-term friendship.

Politics - Recently, a Green Party Councillor came into the shop and Jan complained ‘our vigil in the peace garden was broken up and we were moved on’. The councillor was supportive and said ‘email me and I’ll do something’. Jan says the shop represents the tip of the environmental iceberg and that she often notices the ‘green’ community connections taking place in the queue.

Howcrofts, Stannington, Sheffield

2009-08-20T13:44:00.013+01:00

Howcrofts is an unassuming Off Licence come Grocers with a big claim to fame. The shop has opened daily for the past 63 years! Sundays, Bank Holidays, Christmas or New Year, every day for at least for a few hours.

Maureen Vickers, her son Noel [pictured here], and husband Robert, have served behind this counter for much of their lives, fetching what the customer wants from the shelves that stock that little bit of everything people might need. It’s not self-service. You ask for a tin of tuna and they get it for you. They don’t make a fuss or draw attention to themselves. Just open daily, stay open late and stock what local people need to buy.

“There's always a bottle of champagne in the fridge”, as Maureen says, “we never know when someone’s going to need it nice and cold for a celebration”.

They continue the work started by her father, Wilfred Howcroft, who began running the shop in 1947 and moved his family into the adjoining house, when Maureen was five. Back then, the shop was owned by John Smiths Brewery (and later by Courage) and sold beer, sherry and port on tap. Locals would bring their own jugs to be filled and take home. They also sold powdered eggs, sugar and flour from huge tubs as well as butter, lard and cheese, sold by weight from slabs. With no refrigerator, dried meats hung from hooks, which remain in the ceiling.

Noel showed us this well-thumbed photo from the 1950s, of his grandfather standing outside the shop. You can just make out the cigarette vending machine on the wall and the free-standing sweet machine. "There’s no way you could have those outside now." says Noel. Some other things have changed too.

Now the family own the building and the business. They removed the draught pumps about 20 years ago, but have kept them in the garage, along with the old John Smiths magnet sign. All stock used to be delivered, but now they buy everything from Sheffield’s Cash’n’Carrys. The shop’s now decorated with Maureen’s eclectic collection of witch paraphernalia – some dolls cackle when you clap your hands – and there's even a fairy-light spider’s web on the outside of the building, which they switch on at night. There used to be other shops nearby – a butcher and so on – but they’ve closed down and become residential.

No doubt that private ownership has helped them stay in business, but Maureen and Noel think their longevity is down to staying open till 11pm and knowing what people want. They’ll stock a particular brand of fags or a certain type of martini, especially for customers who ask. Living near the shop means their customers are neighbours and friends. And it doesn’t take too long to get to know more recent arrivals. Customers seem to respect what they do, so they don't get any trouble. They’ve seen generations grow up and some of the kids that used to buy sweets are now grandparents, alongside Maureen herself. Now you’ll find her grandchildren picking items off the shelves and playing shop. The family have every intention of improving on their 63-year run.

Jeff Fearn, J B Tools, Castle Market, Sheffield

2009-08-19T15:26:00.008+01:00

Castle Market has played a big part in Jeff’s life. For the last 20 years, he’s run a hardware business from a couple of units on the lower ground floor of Sheffield’s lively indoor market, which has been under threat of relocation for the past decade.

In the late 1980s, Jeff bought the business from Joyce Brammer, the 'JB' of JB Tools. Business was so good for the first few years that Cyril, Joyce’s husband, stayed on in the shop to help out. Jeff also employed Sheila (for 16 years, until her retirement), his son Carl and a part-timer. Jeff says "Back then the market was really buzzing. I was constantly bringing in new stock and out sourcing new merchandise".

Business was not his only success at the market. He fell in love with the owner of the haberdashery stall next door. Now she also runs another wool stall across the way, and a card-making / crafts stall on the other side of Jeff. They married 15 years ago and have a son – adding to the three from Jeff's first marriage. One of these, Tony, has just opened a hardware stall on the floor above. He cuts keys and stocks paint and other stuff his dad doesn’t, and is apparently doing quite well. If Jeff doesn't have something he'll send a customer up to his son and vice versa. In the long run, if Castle Market does relocate to The Moor, they hope to consolidate into one larger shop with Jeff slowly withdrawing from the business as he nears retirement.

The business has slowly declined over 15 years, to the extent that Jeff only employs one part-timer. He cites two main reasons for this. First, it’s the opening of new supermarkets close to the city centre. Each that has opened has taken a percentage of custom away. Before them, customers would come to the market for their fruit, veg, meat, fish, etc., then buy what hardware they needed from him. Secondly, ten years ago, the Council made public their plan to relocate the market to the other side of the city centre. Delays and indecision have led to years of uncertainty for traders, which has accelerated the decline in the market's fortunes. Because the market might not be there in a few years, new businesses are reluctant to sign up for tenancies. Existing tenants whose contracts are up for renewal are deciding not to renew their lease for the same reason. The Co-op supermarket, which attracts a lot shoppers to the locale, recently decided they won’t commit to 10 more years and will close their store, which will have a negative impact on all the other traders. So as local shops/stalls fall empty there’s no one willing to take them on, except the odd, short-term, transient trader. Also, while the market's future hangs in the balance, the Council has not invested as much as it could have in maintenance and repairs. The building is slowly disintegrating and would now need millions spent to bring it up to scratch.

The state of disrepair means it’s unlikely Jeff’s preference for renovation would be a considered option, as the Council’s plans for the move are reportedly a step closer. He isn't sure relocation is a good idea, saying that Castle Market is working class, and that customers mostly arrive by bus from the lower income suburbs on Sheffield’s north-side. The proposed relocation to The Moor, on the south side of the city centre, is closer to the more affluent suburbs, where people are more likely to have a car and shop at supermarkets.

Enver Korkmaz, Pinar, Tepebashi, Istanbul

2009-07-16T19:00:00.003+01:00

Enver Korkmaz is a butcher in Tepebasi, a few streets of calm amidst Tarlabasi neighbourhood. He’s 28 and for the last eight years he’s run ‘Pinar’. His father set up the shop after migrating to Istanbul over 30 years ago from Erzincan, a town in eastern Turkey. Since the 60s/70s many others from Erzincan have settled here, amongst familiar faces. Men like Ishan, a local plumber, or Ali, an estate agent, both of whom knew Enver’s father (who died four years ago). They watched over Enver and his two brothers as they grew up. Shared roots and big hearts have made for a close-knit community, that feels different from the rest of Tarlabasi.

“Trust”, according to Enver is the mainstay of his business. He knows all of his customers and says they have a good relationship built on trust of his produce and his qualities as a neighbour, as one of them.

Open from 8am to 9pm, 7 days a week, Enver’s a major part of the street life. A customer can shout down an order from their apartment window, which he’ll prepare and deliver. There are customers who care to stay and chat for a while, over tea and a cigarette. He’ll ask some people to run errands for him, and his neighbours who’ll borrow his stools to sit outside. There are parents who ask Enver to keep an eye on their children playing on the street. Households entrust him with their keys. Some even leave him the key to their strongbox.

Enver accepted our invitation to make a project, that would bring together these various groups (and others) for photographs. We reasoned that by recognising these groups, we wanted to show how ‘trust’ in its various guises was important to the community, and reveal the unique social bonds created by Enver.

We sat all day, for a few days, outside the shop, chatting with neighbours, making friends. We made diplomatic visits to other local shops, and to the men who frequent the local tea shop, to talk about the project. We debated points of view like, “if the British Government can manipulate 1 million people on to the streets of Tehran, why should we be trusted to photograph Tepebasi?”

A few days later, we started to take photographs for people that they wanted, of their children and families, and of the local teashop, to help build trust around our intentions.

There were some problems. Primarily when a local (mis) informed the police, who then questioned Enver. They warned him not to work with us, saying we worked for an international organization conspiring to damage the community. Enver needed some reassurance, and letter confirming our identity from Platform Garanti did the trick. He showed it the police the second time they visited and said we are doing the photos.

People where naturally concerned as to how we as foreigners would try to represent them. Some also spoke of other problems that threaten the community and some of the safeguards taken. For example, local landlords have an informal agreement, that rents here are twice as much as a few streets away in Tarlabasi, to help defend against the encroachment of drugs, prostitution and other ‘undesirables’. Gentrification is also an issue. Relatively cheap buildings, it’s prime location near the city centre, and the attractive renovation opportunities, making Tepebasi a prime site for ‘gentrification’.

Whilst some enterprising locals let out rooms, apartments or buildings, which they bought when prices were low, not everyone has the same resources. Enver says he doesn’t want to live or work anywhere else, and with his shop, he can be confident in his chances of staying put. However, some in the community will be priced out, and like the Greeks who once dominated this neighbourhood in the 1950s, will have to find a home elsewhere.

Muharrem Yorganci’s Archive

2009-07-16T18:41:00.019+01:00

Now aged 83, Mr Yorganci bought a camera at the age of 14 and has since habitually photographed and archived all parts of his life including family, friends, weddings, funerals and the customers of their shop.

He ran a small shop with his beloved wife Nermin, for 50 years. “A very beautiful and sweet commercial life passed by. The most important thing was that we did it together.” Their shop was situated in a fairly low-income neighbourhood near Eminonu. His customers were mostly neighbours and friends from the same town on the Black Sea coast. “There was social intimacy in our area. I offered them a chair, we served tea and would talk.”

What follows are extracts from an interview with Mr Yorganci about his life, shop and his photographs.

“We lived above the shop and I remember being disturbed at all hours. A tailor on a deadline might knock at 2am to ask for a replacement for a broken needle. We would serve them, not thinking about profit, but it was our professional duty.”

“When I was a child, my father owned a bakkal, which sold everything for the village. Customers shopped on credit with their debt noted down in our ‘bakkal book’. In 1944, when I had finished school in Istanbul and returned to my village, I wanted to (but didn’t) take photos of the customers and stick them next to their debt. The idea of photographing customers comes from there.”

“In our Istanbul shop, a man had some items in the credit book when he passed away. His son was a child at the time. 15 years later, this young man came to the shop and said ‘I think my father owed you, let’s even things up’. When he began to work, he paid the debt. Because of inflation the debt was nothing at all, but I still let him pay. This gesture, of him remembering to come back and pay his father’s debt, brought tears to our eyes.”

“I replace my camera every few years. Now my daughter says ‘let’s buy you a digital camera’, but I don’t want one. I’ve been taking my films to the same shop since the beginning of the 1970s. I’ve known Rifat, the owner for more than 30 years and there’s a strong bond between us. I sit for an hour or so and drink tea. Then I go again to collect the prints. If I went digital, I would lose that regular contact with my friend.”

Shop photos
“I photographed all the customers I knew, the ones to whom I served tea and chatted with.”

I knew Ahmet from our home town. In Istanbul, he was a neighbour. He worked as a bearer, carrying fruit and vegetables. He bought from the shop all the time and we offered him credit so he could pay later. He’d buy socks, shirts and underwear. When he returned to our hometown for the summer, he would buy gifts. Scarves for his wife, needles and thread. Eau de cologne.”

This man used to work as an assistant for a shoemaker. My wife made his wife’s wedding dress. He’d come and buy things all the time, the same things as Ahmet. Gifts for newborns, socks, scarves and underwear, school materials for his children, bags, etc.”
“This man used to work as a Shoemaker’s assistant. My wife made his wife’s wedding dress. He’d come and buy things all the time, the same things as Ahmet. Gifts for newborns, socks, scarves and underwear, school materials for his children, bags.”

“I would ask children from the neighbourhood to wait by the door so I could take their photograph. I remember this child. She was our neighbour’s daughter. Parents could safely send their children on errands alone. They had confidence in the shops and their owners, and the neighbourhood had very little traffic. She’d buy pens, pencils, notebooks or whatever her mother sent her to buy.”

This photo below shows three of the many photos Mr Yorgani has of himself and which were taken by his customers.

Hayri Öztürk, Bakkal, Üsküdar, Istanbul

2009-07-16T18:27:00.000+01:00

The role Hayri Öztürk has played in his neighbourhood has been two-fold. Most of the day, he sits in his Bakkal, a shop that’s a cornerstone of Istanbul’s city life, serving his customers, smoking cigarettes and fingering his Tespih [prayer beads]. Every day, from 8am to 10pm, neighbours drop in for a chat, to buy milk, bread, sweets, cigarettes, or things they forgot to buy at the supermarket. He has a credit book which is used daily, so people can pay at the end of the month, or when they have the money.

Hayri often keeps an eye on his grandson and other children in the neighbourhood, and whilst there for the convenience of others, he seems content with his lot. He owns the shop and the room next door, and lives in the block across the street. “I make ten lira a day and I spend ten lira an evening, at the local club”, he says.

Though when asked about politics in this quiet backstreet of the religiously conservative Üsküdar, a large and densely populated district on Istanbul's Asian side, he spoke of another part of his life. He described this as a low-income area and he does what he can do to help others out, such as give 5 loaves of bread a day to some Roma families nearby.

Before now he may well have been in a position to do a little bit more. Fifteen years ago he retired from the police force. Since then he’s been the elected head of the neighbourhood or Muhtar, but lost the election this year. As Muhtar he was responsible for government activity at the local level, and authorised, amongst other things, to issue copies of official papers: ID Cards, certificate’s of domicile, etc. He took us to his room next door.

This room is the Muhtar’s office, home to all the records of his activities (and that of his successor), with the walls covered in photographs of every man in the neighbourhood, a few photos of him and some press clippings. It feels like a museum, overlooked by a large photo of Ataturk.

Sidestepping the large bottles of Coke stored here, he pulled out a logbook detailing everyone in the neighbourhood and any official actions taken. Next he produced a book of deeds he’d done, a sort of register of assistance. But it was the 100’s of head shots of men that was the most compelling record. He explained they are used to help identify suspects of crimes, but if they were dead he’d write that on their photo. He pointed out one photo he’d tried, but failed, to pull off the wall to blow up to make a large print for the man's funeral.

When asked ‘why men only?’ he said if he put women’s photos up, they would argue and be jealous with each other about who was the most attractive. He introduced us to a woman from the neighbourhood, who was a lawyer, and answered the same question. She said it was because men were the head of the families and the more public face of each family. "So men would be the ones doing the formal, administrative things of public life."

Our local guide, Gunes said the photo wall system was, at least in her experience, unique.

Nothing is too much, Istanbul

2009-07-16T18:25:00.000+01:00

The quality of customer service in Istanbul is fundamentally special, wherever you go. No 'exclusive' customer of retailers like Beymer, Burberry or Prada, in Nisantasi would expect anything less. Tea, coffee, wine and newspapers are all part of client hospitality. Laws are breakable = smoking is allowed, and customers can bring pets and food into the shop. Shipping, loyalty cards and financial services are all part of the package. Beymer will collect customers from their hotel, Burberry will take clothing to customers' homes.

But go to your Bakkal [mini-market], butcher or baker, in any Istanbul neighbourhood, and the standards are relatively the same. A chair, chai or water would be offered, time allowing. Cigarettes are offered liberally and pets are welcomed. Credit books are common currency.

Local shops will give out magnets so customers can phone through, or shout down an order ('Bakkal, Bakkal' is a regular call from apartment windows), and the shop staff will pick and pack your groceries and deliver them to your doorstep at no extra charge. If they don't have a something in stock, they'll run elsewhere and get it for you in 15 minutes.

If you trust the shop and the shop trusts you, they'll agree to look after your house or car keys while you're out. The local shops use the same customer service as global businesses, to keep themselves alive. One likely difference is that the local shops are controlled by parents, not by parent companies.

Hampar Gögdemir, Kurtulus, Istanbul

2009-07-16T17:36:00.006+01:00

A shop in the Kurtulus neighbourhood of Istanbul. Fitted-out with elegant display counters, it sells good Turkish brands of unisex underwear and nightwear.

Business isn’t good. The present crisis is affecting sales because vast quantities of clothing were manufactured in Turkey for an export market that no longer exists. These items are being sold off locally at very low retail prices in factory shops, markets and arcades. Mr Gögdemir can’t afford to match these low prices. However, he’s got more chance of survival because he owns the shop so is not paying rent. There were six other shops like his in the neighbourhood, which have all closed down.

Shopping habits are changing. Nowadays customers either go Marks & Spencer for quality or to the arcades and markets for very cheap prices. He told us of a long-term customer who brought her daughter into the shop. Upsettingly, the daughter didn’t want to buy anything, she preferred M&S.

Mr Gögdemir knows many of his customers by sight. He’s known some customers since the shop opened 25 years ago. A few elderly customers still bring him home-cooked food. He used to know the customers better. Few take the time to sit down for a glass of tea and talk about the different generations, like they used to. They come in, buy what they need and disappear.

The community used to be closer knit. A woman might buy a housedress and show her neighbour. Half an hour later the neighbour would turn up to buy one too. Then half an hour later another neighbour would come. It’s not like this anymore.

Mr Gögdemir used to drink tea and play games with other local shopkeepers in the street outside. However, tea from the teahouse has grown increasingly expensive (five glasses a day costs over £60 a month), so now he brews his own. He’s never encouraged other shopkeepers to enter and socialise within the shop, as he wouldn’t want to present a female customer with a row of men in front of the counter.

We spoke to Mr Gögdemir about the way shopkeepers greet customers. In the underwear shop, with its higher class of customer and more intimate nature, he usually addresses customers as ‘madam’ or ‘sir’, to keep a respectful distance. However, “if someone wearing a headscarf comes in or someone who seems lower class and therefore might care more about her womanly virtue or reputation, I will be sensitive to her situation and without thinking, I would greet her as ‘Abla’ (big sister), to try to put her at ease.” By using kinship names like aunt or sister, a shopkeeper makes the customer family. By removing sexuality from their interaction, he protects her virtue.

Kozma Kozmauoglu, Kozmaologu’s Pork Butcher, Dolapdere, Istanbul

2009-07-09T17:19:00.001+01:00

Every surface and machine was spotless, or being made so by Kozma’s staff, as he showed us around the processing and storage rooms behind his pork butcher’s shop. The last of the sliced ham was being vacuum-packed as the operation wound down its business for the day. We were offered some slices of very tasty ham, rather than the customary tea. The pork chops, ribs, sausages, smoked or mortadello ham, and other pork products had already been withdrawn from the shop’s display. “With the heat of the day," he explains, “it’s best to keep everything in the large fridges in the back rooms.”

We’d set out to meet with Kozma, ‘The Last Pork Butcher in Istanbul’, after hearing a news broadcast on BBC radio last year. The programme spoke of the potential demise of his business due to new regulations, that some say are part of the government’s increasingly Islamic agenda.

He’s being prevented from slaughtering pigs. The Agriculture Ministry are refusing him a licence to operate his own abattoir, saying it did not meet the strict new guidelines. Careful not to say anything inflammatory, Kozma suggests, “maybe it was the issue with Pig Fever last year that led the government to revoke all pork abattoir licences.”

Others [on the BBC] said the closure of his, and all the other pig slaughterhouses, was “all about Islam” and symptomatic of the pro-Islamic agenda of the governing AK Party, which is popular with religious rural and the conservative, urban middle-class.

Despite this regulatory squeeze, we learnt that Kozmauoglu has negotiated a way to stay in business, as well as adapting to the long-standing decline of the non-Moslem minorities in the Dolapdere neighbourhood.

“These days, it’s rare for there to be walk-in customers, though we do have occasional visitors,” Kozma says. Now it’s mostly wholesale, to cruise ships, Armenian schools, chic delicatessen frequented by secular high society, and hotels, particularly those in the Antalya tourist region on Turkey’s south coast.

The government now allows Kozmaoglu to buy pork - he receives the pigs halved from farms in Mersin and Antalya - then process and distribute pork products around Turkey. They are the only institution in Istanbul to have a licence to do this. In return, he provides the government with a list of his customers to prove he is not selling to Turkish Moslems and is transparent about those he trades with.

To demonstrate the delicacy of his situation, he showed us two shipping documents, noting that the government officials do not put their own names on the documents for fear of reprisals. When asked about the future of the shop he said, “Who knows. It’s difficult to predict the government’s attitude.”

Kozma set up the business in 1977 with his brother Lazari, and comes from an old Greek family that moved to Istanbul 200 years ago, with roots in the central Anatolian town of Karaman. His daughter and son also work for the business. Just behind the shop is the Greek Orthodox Church of Panayia Evangelistria. The neighborhood was predominantly Greek when Istanbul’s Rum [Greek] minority numbered 100,000 or more in the early 1950s. Today, Istanbul’s Rums, as they are called, number around 2,000. The decline was prompted by the riots against the Greeks and other non-Moslem minorities in September 1955. He says some of his extended family emigrated to Greece in the 1970’s, though still come back to visit. There are only 10 or 15 Rums living in the neighborhood nowadays. And for some of them, Kozmaoglu’s shop is a meeting place. They come and chat and drink tea, even if they don’t buy anything.

Akaretler, Istanbul

2009-07-09T16:56:00.014+01:00

Photographing Akaretler was a bit of a problem. It's an upscale neighbourhood developed by Beymer, one of Turkey's major fashion brands, in partnership with American bank, Citigroup. We walked down Macka Street, which felt like a public street, combining smart, new apartments and high-end retailers like Mark Jacobs, etc. We took one photo. A pincer move by two private security guards prevented us taking more.

Çarşı, Beşiktaş Istanbul

2009-07-07T18:26:00.001+01:00

We visited Beşiktaş fish market because this was the origin for the Çarşı, an unofficial supporters club of Beşiktaş FC. At each match, they chant and show huge banners responding to current or political affairs with witty, anarchistic slogans like, “We are against everything, except Ataturk” that are picked up by TV, and beamed across the world.

Çarşi literally means Market, and we wanted to find out what the relationship was between the market and the Çarşi now. Everyone of the fish sellers we spoke to was ‘Beşiktaş’, and proud they’d just won the league [again]. We learnt, that yes indeed, the Çarşi, are named after here, and the head Çarşi guy buys his fish from here for his restaurant. The fish sellers also pointed us in the direction of the Çarşi shop, in the nearby Grand Beşiktaş precinct.

The shop has official merchandise, but they also design their own gear which reflects the Çarşi slogans, which are admired by many and appropriated by supporters of other teams! On match days, the shop opens at 6-7am and has a queue of 300 people outside. The owner said he rarely goes to the matches now (he’s in his 40s), but the president gives him signed shirts as gifts, he knows all the players, transfer gossip and news about the club, and gets called all the time for his point of view.

The owner told us that he and his brother are part of the inner core Çarşi, which meets weekly. We heard the core have a powerful influence, coordinating banners, chants and deciding if support or protests are needed. For instance, after the Izmit earthquake, the Çarşi mobilized and donated hundreds of thousands of units of blood to the Red Crescent (the Turkish Red Cross). Or when TV pundits repeatedly said Beşiktaş was only winning the league because Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe were ‘actively losing’, the Çarşi protested, sending 1 million set-top boxes back to the TV company.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%87ar%C5%9F%C4%B1_(supporter_group)

Made in China, Wholesale markets, Eminonu, Istanbul

2009-07-07T18:19:00.014+01:00

Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar is surrounded by wholesale markets where retailers and consumers from all over Turkey come to buy. We found ourselves speaking with a textile salesman called Ekrem. He works for a company, Zumrut Tekstil, that owns a factory near Beijing, China. We were hoping to make a personal connection between Istanbul and Guangzhou, a city we visited earlier in our project. He pointed us in the direction of the Sark Han wholesale market, where the products, and some of the workers, were from China. "Made in China" boxes dominated Sark Han's five story building. Every stall displayed products from the boxes, and when empty they are sent to the basement to be torn up for disposal. We found some migrant workers who were in Turkey to help smooth the supply chain from one culture to another, though none wanted to speak to us. A Turkish wholesaler, who visits China four times a year for 15 days at a time, suggested the Chinese were not talking to us for fear of being found out. "It’s more than likely they are working here illegally. They enter on a 3-month tourist visa, some overstay, some leave and re-enter Turkey to get a new tourist visa".

Amir and Jasmin Kulauzovic, JAGODA, Trnovo, Ljubljana

2009-05-07T15:51:00.017+01:00

Owned by two brothers, Amir and Jasmin, Jagoda opened for business in the Trnovo suburb in 2004. A few minutes walk from the Old Town centre, their bright yellow shop is posted on a pathway between the north bank of the Ljublianica river and a modern 70s housing estate.

From here they sell high quality fruit and vegetables, bringing colour to the neighbourhood in more ways than one. Their main aim is, of course, to run an economically successful business and support their young families. Before they arrived, others had tried but failed to make the shop's location work. However, through their innate creativity, kindness and lots of hard work they have succeeded in an extraordinary way, with the shop becoming a kind of 'social hub' for the neighbourhood.

Jasmin ensures they have good quality produce, visiting the wholesale market at 4.30am every morning to re-stock, from which he creates stunning displays in the shop.

From what we saw, the brothers greet almost every passer-by - customers and non-customers alike - with a variant of 'Dan-Dan' (hi-hi). Both men, queues allowing, will spend their time chatting with people, young and old, perhaps being elderly people's only daily social contact, keeping them in the loop with the neighbourhood. But the brothers offer much more than a good gossip spot, they exude a positivity and trust.

Amir, who looks after the afternoon stint, plays his favourite music, singing along and bringing a smile to the faces of passers-by. They'll look after a customers shopping, whilst they take their dogs for a walk, returning later to collect it, safe and sound. The elderly, in a habit left over from the currency change (from Tolars to Euros), will hand over their purses for the brothers to pick out what they are owed.

This measure of trust works both ways. If a customer is short of cash one day, their name and sum owed is written in the 'little blue book' . We're told this is an increasingly uncommon practice in Ljubljana.

One way they have used to establish a relationship with people in this dog-mad neighbourhood was to give a customer's dog a treat. Almost every dog would get one, till some owners complained about the inconvenience of their dog dragging them out of their way to snaffle up a treat, or that their dog proved allergic to the gift. There's still around six dogs who, each time they pass by, wait by the open door and hoover up their biscuit.

The treats are not just for the dogs. Children are given sweets too! And in autumn, Amir and Jasmin might barbeque corn-on-the-cob to give to their customers. In winter it would be chestnuts, which is also a time when Jasmin would also shovel up all the snow along the pathway to build big beautiful snowmen [thanks for the photos Amir].

Born in Ljubljana in the 1970s, of Bosnian parents, the brothers followed their father into the fruit and veg trade. He'd started supplying restaurants, the first business of its kind in post-independence Slovenia. They worked for him for a short while and have even named their shop after his business, Jagoda. Which translates as 'strawberry', the first spring fruit and is a metaphor for a new (political) beginning. Amir says there's not as much money in selling fruit & veg these days compared to the 90s, stating he earns in one month what his father would earn in 3 days. He adds most people don't know the shop is called Jagoda, the sign hanging on the door is often out of sight when the store is open.

Jagoda is open 12 hours a day from 7-7, and closed Saturday afternoon and Sunday. The brothers take the whole of August off. When asked what it was like when the brothers took their August vacation, a customer jokingly said it's like having his legs chopped off.

Dušanka Sulejmalli, "Laura", Ljubljana

2009-05-06T16:06:00.012+01:00

Known to her familiars as 'Duška', in 1991 she opened her ladies fashion boutique, named after her daughter Laura - an unusual name for Slovenia. Her shop is tucked into one corner of a forecourt of an ex-petrol station - dominated by a concrete umbrella structure - off the arterial road to Kranj. From here, she dresses Ljubljana's women in imported Italian fashions, many of whom have been loyal customers since the shop opened.

Originally from Serbia but resident in Slovenia for some 30 years, Duška learnt her trade as a travelling saleswoman for a clothing company serving all of former-Yugoslavia.

She provides a personalised styling service that aims to dress her customers well whatever the occasion, whilst trying to encourage their adventurous side: a philosophy which seems to be working well. On our first visit, we mistook a customer's purchase of a raw silk suit combining a beige jacket printed with a cascade of pink flowers and bright fuscia trousers, as an outfit for a special occasion, for a child’s graduation, birthday, or wedding. "No, it's for the office," we were told.

She buys all her stock from factory showrooms near Milan, Italy. She goes monthly, or more often if stock is getting low. With her customers’ size and shape in mind, she'll choose clothes she knows will suit them. They in turn, trust her to make them look good. On returning from Italy she will ring up certain customers and invite them to the shop to try on what she’s bought for them. She says in the future she may buy wholesale from Serbia, as the prices are better, yet the clothes are still very stylish.

Duška regularly goes for coffee with her customers, who include judges and dentists who will visit every season to update their wardrobe to retired ladies who buy every now and again. If she’s not seen a certain customer for a while, she’ll call them to see how they are. All are attracted by a range of clothes not available elsewhere in Slovenia and as such a woman dressed by Duška is more often than not dressed 'individually'.

One particular woman brought several friends but she had first choice of what to buy and then her friends weren’t allowed to buy the same items. Others keep their visits to the boutique secret as they don’t want anyone else to be wearing the same clothes as them. Some will even lie and, if asked, say they got their clothes in Italy or Germany, in order to stop people finding out where they buy their clothes.

Complementary silk scarves are gifted to buyers of certain outfits, which Duška will slip into the bag. She also gives away around 400 umbrellas a year, as an accessory or Christmas gift. She’ll also mark a special customer’s major birthday (like 50th or 60th) with a gift.

With Duska's help, we photographed and interviewed some of her most ardent customers about the role the shop has played in their lives.

Duska also has a son who runs a second hand car dealership based in the huge BTC shopping zone on the north-east outskirts of the city.

Alen Kardas, Hapy Days Fish Seller, Kras

2009-05-01T18:14:00.001+01:00

"Yes, I choose the music" said Alen when asked about the folk songs playing from the loudspeaker atop his refrigerated van, “though they need to be Slovene".

We travelled to meet Alen in the small market square of Komen, a village in Kras, a rural region about an hours drive east of Ljubljana and close to the Italian border. He works for a family business called Hapy Days that runs a small fleet of vans across the region. We learnt that these songs are important for people to retain a sense of the region's identity, given the proximity to Italy and even more so now with the EU accession in 2007. In a twist of irony, the fresh fish he sells are from the wholesale market across the border in Trieste.

He sells here each Saturday from 8am-12.30pm and on Tuesdays from 9-10am. Otherwise he criss-crosses the region, driving to villages in the Vremska or Vipavska Valley, or visiting several along the route from Divača to Sežana; Tomačevica, Mali Doli, Kobjeglava, Tupelče, Hruševica, Štanjel. He sticks to a regular timetable so customers know when to expect to hear his music, and takes Sunday and Monday off.

He told us he does house calls too, and reckons on some days he slides the van door open and shut 200 times. Sometimes for feuding neighbours, he needs to park outside one house, then drive the 20 metres or so to the neighbour’s house, as neither will buy from outside their enemy’s gate – a situation he said that’s typically Slovene.

Alen knows his fish, and so when asked, advises customers how best to store or cook bass, mackerel, etc., Though he thinks a big part of his job is to make customers smile, particularly those elderly customers who are isolated or now live alone. He adds the elderly particularly like to buy sardines as they are cheap and nutritious, ideal if you are living on a basic pension.

Customers now know him, and some call his mobile to order or reserve a type, or quantity of fish they may need for a party or BBQ. He’ll check if he can supply, then call back to say yes or no.

We asked his customers about the family tree of their purchase, who would eat the fish they had bought? We were surprised with the variety of our small sample. From a famous Slovene actor, a local designer whose father designed the Slovene Euro coin, a friend of our guide, to children running an errand for their parents, and individuals buying for themselves, their spouses and their families. In a further cross-border twist, people even came from Italy to buy from him because Hapy Days prices are lower.

Hapy Days was started in 1990 by Joze who then bought direct from Croatian fishermen to sell in Komen from the back of his Renault 4. Joze’s wife, Wilma, and daughter Janja take care of the accounts. At 4.30am every morning, Joze arrives at the Trieste fish market and stocks up 4 of the 6 vans they operate – 2 don’t run at present as they are short-staffed. Their son, Tomaz drives one van and Janja’s husband Damir drives another. Employees, Ego and Alen drive the other two. Each is responsible for a different route through Kras.

At the end of each day the vans return to base. Each driver/seller weighs the fish left, refrigerates the good stuff and tells Joze what’s needed for the next day. Any fish not fresh enough to go back on the van is filleted by Damir’s mother and father. These fillets are then sold to a local restaurant, ensuring what is being sold in the vans is always fresh and top quality.

Each day the drivers wash the inside of their vans, with the outside washed weekly on a Saturday afternoon. Alen says it’s hard work and long hours so the business struggles to recruit and retain staff. He’s looking to start a family, but figures his work at the moment makes it difficult to find a girl and settle down.

Elena & Costica, Alexandru neighbourhood, Iaşi

2008-12-17T10:55:00.006Z

During Communist times, Elena and Costica worked in a textile factory. Elena did the bookkeeping and Costica supervised the machinery. Post-1989, the textile market dropped off and the factory restructured. At this point, they started their own business and have been going for about 15 years.

Elena has strong opinions about respecting her customers. She provides good quality, branded products, within their sell-by dates, at reasonable prices to residents of the Minerva Esplanada in the Alexandru neighbourhood of Iaşi. Elena buys her goods from local wholesale centres called Siraj and Metro, which operate a card-based membership scheme similar to the UK’s Makro. She’s got a lock-up nearby to store what doesn’t fit in the kiosk. Many customers are elderly and can’t get to the larger supermarkets so need to shop locally.

The kiosk sells a little bit of everything – daily items such as cigarettes, soft drinks, toiletries as well as items you might perhaps run out of, like cornflour (an ingredient for mămăliga, one of Romania’s staple foods – a delicious mix of corn meal, often served with sheep’s cheese and sour cream), oil, rice, coffee, nappies, hosiery, batteries and make-up. If a customer asks Elena to get something particular, for example men’s vests, she will do her best to buy it for them.

Elena has strong relationships with her customers. A few are ex-colleagues or family friends. Many she has known for years, such as 17-year old Cătalină who she saw as a baby, used to sell sweets to as a child, and now sells hair dye to as a teenager. Many customers buy from her daily, such as Constantin who buys a pack of Monte Carlo cigarettes each day. Others, such as 5-year old Matei just pop in to see the dog and maybe get his Mum to buy a pack of puffed corn.

Elena and Costica share the workload, taking turns to sit in their chilly kiosk at street level or to warm up in their cosy flat, five storeys above. They intend to open over Christmas and the New Year. As their only son is working in the UK, and will visit them at Easter, they’ll capitalise on the festive season and stay open while surrounding shops are closed.

We met Elena on our first day in Iasi, created a photo album of her and her customers, and had dinner with her and her friends on our last night.

Maria & Ion Ocâ's dairy, Iaşi

2008-12-17T10:50:00.001Z

Maria’s grandparents lived in this house, before she and her husband Ion took over the smallholding, in a countryside village about 15 minutes drive from Iaşi.

Maria has delivered handmade cheese, cream and occasionally milk to nine customers’ homes in the Tataraşi, every 10 days or so, for the past 40 years. Some of the older people died and now she delivers to their descendants. She delivered these products throughout the communist era, outside the state’s rationing system of the 1980s: a small-scale, subsistence ‘black market’.

Maria learnt to make cheese from her grandmother, who also used to make butter. “She’d put the butter on a plate and make it round like a haystack and then take the spoon and make all sorts of patterns. People bought it by the 100gms. Both my mother and my grandmother used to go market. And I used to go with them to the market. Now I sell at the market. I sell whatever we have, beans, corn, in summer we sell vegetables from the garden. In the market, customers look at the way we look, how clean our hands are, how clean our apron is, what the basket looks like, how white the cheesecloth is. They look and then they choose whom to buy from.”

Some years Maria sells wine, but this year she’s putting it aside as her son is getting married this coming summer. They sell homemade plum brandy. They have various fowl, goats, sheep, cows, horses, honeybees and a dappled, snorting pig, which is being fattened up for Christmas.

We were talking in Maria’s back room of her house, when she flung open the doors of a cupboard to reveal her cheese-to-be. Each day she milks the cows and stores the milk in these earthenware jars. The jars were made by Roma pottery makers, who used to come around and sell at the door, but they don’t come anymore, so when Maria breaks a pot, she can’t replace it.

“If both shelves are full of pots, then I know I have enough for all of my customers. It takes about a week or ten days to fill up both shelves. The cream rises to the top. And then it has to sit and curdle because you can’t put fresh milk into cheese. The milk curdles and you separate that out and make the cheese with it. You warm it up on the stove and you put it in cheesecloth and leave it to strain, leave it dripping until it is dense.”

Titi's Kiosk, Copou, Iaşi

2008-12-17T10:45:00.002Z

For the last ten years, Titi (short for Constantin) has framed the world, his customers and his commerce through the window of his kiosk on the busy Carol I Blvd, surrounded by the university buildings of the Copou neighbourhood of Iaşi. Watching taxi drivers jostle for parking spaces and streams of students flood by, he sells newspapers, magazines, stationery, tissues and other convenience items.

Some university professors have been customers for many years. They have Titi’s mobile number and might ring, even quite late at night if they’ve just seen a book or magazine ad on the telly, to ask him to keep a particular publication aside for them the next morning, which Titi stows away on the shelf below the counter or the shelf above the window.

The outside of the kiosk is covered in a scaly skin of magazines, with the semi-dark interior lit by artificial light. An electric heater keeps Titi and his wife Elena warm in the bitter cold of winter, when temperatures can drop too -15 C. On chilly days, the window is opened only when customers approach. Elena opens the kiosk at 6am every morning. Titi takes over at about 10.30 and works through to around 9 at night, earlier at weekends or during the college holidays. Last year, they took their first break in nine years, a month-long road trip around the mountains of Romania with their son and his fiancée.

As most kiosks in Iaşi have now been consolidated into companies, sometimes Titi himself wonders how he’s managed to stay independent. Mainly due to his active lobbying of City Hall, he’s been successful in renewing the 6-month lease of his 3m x 1.5m pavement pitch. City Hall has decreed that all kiosks must conform to a standard design so in March 2009, Titi and Elena’s existing kiosk will be transported to his back garden and used to store tools. In its place, they’ll install a new double-glazed design, which they have commissioned to conform to planning regulations.

Titi’s previous career was as an electrical engineer on the railways. After restructuring, he was offered early retirement aged 50.

Supermarkets, Iaşi

2008-12-14T20:03:00.011Z

Every week or two, most people in Iaşi will find the latest Supermarket catalogue stuffed in to their post box, whether they want one or not. On a 7-14 day cycle, the big retailers publish these free magazines to advertise their latest prices and promotion, like the 2+1 free offer on the cover of Carrefour’s mid-Nov edition. The frequency of the publication reflects the big retailers strategy to shape consumer behaviour: they are trying to educate people to visit the supermarkets more often, because the frequent user will always buy more monthly.

Several people related how much they enjoy researching prices. It’s a process similar to that employed by the back-office staff at Carrefour, who monitor the sector from a large magazine wall rack filled with competitors catalogues. People look through their catalogues comparing merchandise and prices, then share the information with friends and neighbours, before choosing to buy the cheaper one. Although sometimes, and this is corroborated by TV and newspaper reports, when they get to the cashier to pay they discover that the price is higher than that advertised.

Since Supermarkets arrived in 2003, the big retailers have used these catalogues, loyalty card schemes, allied to media advertising, to help establish a firm grip on the market that not long ago was dominated by small neighbourhood shops and markets.

If we are to believe some local research (www.strategy-for-iasi.com), more than 67% of consumers get more than 50% of their day-to-day goods from big retailers. Of these, Carrefour has 28% market share, other big retailers (Kaufland, Billa, G’Market, Metro, Selgros) have 38% of the total market, the small neighbourhood shops have 33% and another 3% come from the traditional markets. Since this research was conducted, the 2nd Carrefour in Pacaurari has opened, probably eating a little more into the 36% share controlled by the small shops and markets.

Markets, Iaşi

2008-12-14T14:01:00.014Z

We happened upon Constantin Gherasim one Sunday morning at the neighbourhood market in Alexandru, one of several municipal open markets. A Romanian Orthodox Byzantine Chant, from the towers of a newly built local church, drifted over the marketplace as he told us about his choice of purchase and why he shops there. He’d bought potatoes at 1RON per kg (about 25p) and impressed upon us his preference for the Romanian cartofi that filled his bag. He believes them to be ‘healthier, more natural’ than those imported from countries abroad, like Turkey.

“I really know about potatoes,” he declared. We learnt that he managed their production when he worked as an economist and accountant at the large Sarca Farm, outside of the city. “Our soil is not so polluted, we don’t use too many chemical fertilizers,” he says. "I know everything that goes into the process and what should come out … it’s not quantity of produce that counts, but quality.”

Alexandru Market, like it’s counterparts elsewhere in the city - Nicolina, Tatarasi, and Halle Central - has existed since the communist-era. These are Iaşi’s traditional marketplaces based on a local agricultural economy, and currently offering low-cost seasonal fruits and vegetables, fresh meat and dairy products, fish, and other local produce.

We sampled herbs and mushrooms handpicked from the forest, fields or roadside; raw and freshly pickled vegetables from 50 litre barrels; sheep cheese, cow cheese, milk, meat, honey and nuts; a majority of which came direct from the producer.

A cheese farmer, like Samica Gangal here at Halle Centrale, would perhaps make 1,200kg of cheese every summer at her countryside farm before selling it in Iaşi for 18 RON per kg.

The growth of Iaşi’s Fast Moving Consumer Goods sector (Supermarkets) has impacted the marketplaces’ popularity over the last couple of years. Despite this, many people we spoke with echoed Constantin’s loyality to the markets, preferring the natural produce, which basically translates as organic.

Constantin also thinks people ought to buy from there to encourage local production. “Why import when we have perfectly good or better products of our own”. To this end, he intends to start an organic honey farm and sell his produce at the market.

He was amongst the 60-70 customers we interviewed at the municipal markets (plus a similar number at supermarkets) to develop a publication called Cumpărături Alese, or Hand-Picked. It’s a (supermarket style) brochure comparing the motivation behind people’s choice at the markets and the supermarkets.

Customer Care, Iaşi

2008-12-07T15:41:00.013Z

Stop and think of a shop you care about? In some research conducted in different neighbourhoods, we invited passers-by to consider this question. Over four days, on the streets of Alexandru, Copou, Pacurai and Tataraşi, we asked people to tell us about a shop that they care about, and talk about the reasons why they felt a ‘bond’. Bonds, we thought, are often made in particular circumstances – a shop may have helped them through hard times, or fits conveniently into their daily routine, or represents something culturally significant they feel needs supporting in the city's changing economic environment.

Through this research, we wanted to better understand how locals felt about the city’s evolving shopping landscape, and potentially find a lead to a shop (or context) that we could develop a project with.

“I care for Carrefour/Kaufland/Billa …”, was (un)surprisingly, a popular initial response.

Supermarkets are a recent phenomenon in Iaşi, which perhaps offers some explanation for people’s enthusiasm. Billa was the first to arrive 5 years ago, followed by three Kaufland stores, one G-Market, and two Carrefour’s – including the new development pictured here in Pacauri, on the periphery of the city.

Lower prices, convenience and better quality were often cited as reasons why people care for Carrefour and their competitors over more local stores. “I don’t trust local shops so much, because of the quality of the products. The big stores are better,” explained Constantin, a retired factory worker.

Below the surface of this initial response we heard talk suggesting a deeper truth. Our friend Alexandru told us that even if it has been some time since 1989 revolution, people are still affected by it. He said there is a kind of euphoria when you have a choice. “In communist times there was just one type of yoghurt, one type of bread, one type of butter. But now we can choose whatever we like. Consuming things is a calming activity for people. We like it.”

People really value the idea of consumerism, and the power of consumerism is all too evident from the myriad of choice on the supermarket shelves. “You can find everything… now we have access to all kinds of products”, echoed Constantin. For some, just having access is enough: “I even enjoy going to Carrefour, even when I don’t buy things”, a woman in Tataraşi told us.

We met a construction engineer called Carmen who lives in the quiet suburb of Copou. She doesn’t necessarily agree with the shopping culture promoted by the supermarkets. Despite using them from time-to-time when pushed for time, she thinks places like Carrefour and Kaufland, “sell people products they don’t need”.

When she does have the time though, one place she really loves to go is the clothes shop, BSB. It’s on the second floor of the recently-renovated Moldova Mall, a former socialist Supermagazin in the city centre. “They have the type of clothes I prefer - modern, with my favourite colours.” She visits maybe once a month, not to buy, but to browse and rummage for inspiration. “I don’t have a lot of money so I make my own clothes. I go to see the trends.”

Lucica Popovici also lives in Copou. She prefers to get her milk, eggs, cheese and wine from the Moirei family house – pictured above. She’s been buying from her neighbours for 20 years. “I have my people,” she told us. “They keep cows and chickens at the back of their house, so everything is fresh compared to buying them in a store. I can also buy on credit”. The table in the gateway at the front of the house functions as the counter. We’re told this kind of domestic economy is limited to the minority garden suburbs, with around 80% of Iaşian’s living in urban apartment blocks. It established itself as a way of supplementing food tokens and cash in communist times, and as such remains popular with older generations, but less so with younger. Lucica says she’s also part of an informal network where people from nearby villages come and sell their produce door-to-door, and is a big fan of Alexandru Market.

Lucian is a university graduate whose life wouldn’t be the same without the bike shop near the train station. He goes there to buy equipment and get his bike serviced and repaired by their mechanic, who he now counts as a friend. Like him, the staff are fanatics, and they organise cycling tours through Iaşi’s hills.

Sinziana Moldoveanu declares her care for homeware specialists Bamboo:

Radu Vâscu particularly likes Zara at Julius Mall, a large, new and relatively up-market development near the university campus, because ‘it combines pleasure and utility’.

"Julius Mall is something beautiful. It’s more beautiful than other shops”, we were told by Ionut, a little later in the day. He likes Versace (on the 1st floor), but Armani is his favourite. “When I come back from work abroad that’s where I go… It doesn’t matter that the prices are high, the quality is the best!”

Two people spoke of their own shops. Eugen set up his secondhand clothes shop in the Galata neighbourhood 6 months ago, and he cares about it because it is ‘for his children’. Elena has run a kiosk for 15 years on the Alexandru Esplanada. She buys good quality produce from Cash & Carrys – Selgros, Metro, Siraj – and from supermarkets, which is then bought by local people, including those who are old or infirm and unable to travel to the supermarkets. In that sense she cares about the suppliers, but also cares about all those she serves.

Kiosks, Iaşi

2008-11-24T17:48:00.012Z

Small, compact, and a dominant feature of Iasi’s current shopping landscape, Kiosks began to appear post-Ceaucescu, mostly as individual enterprises. Now there are hundreds on the streets throughout the city – selling everything from newspapers, tobacco, and fruit & veg to a variety of what some consider to be ‘low quality merchandise’. Usually, there is one person seated inside amongst the merchandise, though it’s really tough to get to see who it is you are actually buying from. We heard ownership has been consolidated, with some people owning several units city wide, with the proprietor driving round to pick up the daily takings from the hired help. Many want to see these Kiosks rationalised or removed.

The small serving hatch has a lockable window to help keep out the cold, whilst minimising buyer /seller eye contact. The design seems to be consistent throughout the Kiosk phenomena’s brief history. Apparently this Kiosk dates from the late 1990s…

this one from the early 2000s…

and this from the mid-1990s

Maternity Hospital 'Magazin', Iaşi

2008-11-24T17:28:00.012Z

Across the street from the 1960s block that houses our small two-room city centre apartment is Iasi’s central maternity hospital. Alex, our friend, is one of the many thousands whose life has begun across the way, with additions to this city’s growing 400,000+ population arriving everyday.

From our kitchen window, we see the main entrance through which passes a steady flow of admissions and departures with new born, and a small shop, or ‘magazin’.

A shop! Right before our very eyes and over our morning coffee, an impromptu community of patients, visitors and staff queue to buy their preferred brand of cigarette, soft drink, or snack.

A sub-group of this hospital community that are particularly eye-catching are the mothers and mothers to be, wrapped up against the winter chill in brightly coloured dressing gowns that are in stark contrast to the milky morning light.

There’s fluorescent green, followed by peach …

then pink…

blue …

peach again ...

a green and red concoction ...

and scarlet ...

Pork Stalls, #13, Shipai Village market, Guangzhou

2008-05-30T13:00:00.002+01:00

Lin Ye Te and Su Gu Zhen are pork butchers in Shipai, an ‘urban’ village swallowed up by Guangzhou’s expansion 20 years ago. Many residents are transient, low-income workers from other parts of China who rent apartments from original villagers who now live in nicer parts of the city. At Y550 (£40) per month for a small one-bedroom flat, rents are not cheap.

We’d heard talk about how the price of pork is a big issue for people, especially for those on low incomes like in Shipai. We were told that pork is an important staple resource with pricing under daily government control. Leaving the price open to the market could lead to sharp inflation and make pork more expensive in remote parts of China, where people are often on low incomes. Despite this regulation, the price has rocketed, doubling in the last year, in part due to an outbreak of disease and a subsequent cull, and rising oil prices upping transportation costs. The prices are not as high today as they have been, but are still higher than before the disease struck.

The butchers helped us start a process documenting people up and down the pork supply chain, and ask about the impact the price rise has had on their daily lives. They themselves work most hours of the day and are paying to put their son through University. They introduced us to their customers and suppliers.

Lin Ye Te took us on his nightly visit to ‘The New Pigs Wholesale Market’ on the edge of the city. He bought two live pigs at Y10 per half kilo from a wholesaler who brought the pigs down from Hunan province; one weighing 135, the other 115 kilos; before going home for a few hours sleep. A private food company collects the pigs, delivers them to a government abattoir where they are killed, health tested, cut it in half and stamped (or not) as fit for human consumption. The butcher pays Y80 per pig for this service. The private food company then delivers the pig halves by van to the village gates.

The butchers employ a man with a motorbike to collect the pig carcasses from the gates and transport it through the narrow walkways of the village to their stall in the central market. Lin Ye Te cuts up the carcass into different parts of the animal and throws the meat onto the stall. Su Gu Zhen and their employees cut the meat further into smaller portions and cuts, to sell to customers. General pork cuts are sold for Y14 for half a kilo. Choice cuts, like the heart, are sold for Y28 per half kilo. From wholesale to cooking pot takes less than 8 hours.

Slow Shop, Guangzhou

2008-05-30T12:57:00.006+01:00

Slow Shop, tucked away on the 5th floor of a Mall by Martyrs Park metro station, is an enterprise run by designer/photographer, Ya Ya Qiu. Friends introduced us to Slow because it represents two things relatively new in contemporary China, an independent brand with an entrepreneurial spirit; ‘Take your time, it’s your life’ reads the maxim on her business card.

Ya Ya divides her time everyday between the shop, designing at home, and visiting local factories discussing production. Selling clothes, accessories, soft furnishings, home wares, gifts etc… roughly 80% of the products in the shop are her design and made locally, with the remainder produced by other young local designers.

One of the things she wants to bring to the public is an appreciation of Chinese characters, by putting them on clothing – rather than English-language slogans and brands – and for the characters to be seen as modern, desirable and up to date. She’s also making and exhibiting sustainable shopping bags to cut down on plastic. Her business started 3 years ago and she’s soon to open a new branch in Beijing

Guan Han Ji & Xiao Wang Qi, NanTing village

2008-05-30T12:47:00.001+01:00

Guan and Xiao have run their grocery in a backstreet of the village for 25 years now. They live in the rooms behind the shop, but used to live in a house in a neighbouring village until that village was one of the many demolished in 2004 to make way for the construction of eight new university campuses known as Guangzhou's ‘University City’.

Completed within 8 months, University City brought an influx of jobs and money to NanTing. Many new shops and restaurants opened on the outer edges of the village to cater for the huge new student population. Not many students take a walk down Guan and Xiao’s street though, so commerce there has stagnated. Now, the scales are rusty and the shelves are relatively bare; packets of noodles, cigarettes, alcohol, soft drinks, household products are sold to their friends and neighbours. The odd bottle of quality spirits gathers dust. Xiao says before University City, they opened all day every day and had a busy pool hall on the 1st floor. Now she opens up 8am to midday and 5pm to 11pm. Afternoons are spent weeding a local farmer’s fields because she can earn more money that way. Similarly, Guan delivers gas cylinders throughout the village.

They host card games most evenings in front of their shop. Xiao told us they no longer pay for a license to trade and nobody cares to ask, so they carry on regardless. Despite the new prosperity in the village, many locals, like Guan and Xiao, resent the fact they lost their homes without adequate compensation. There is still a refugee camp close by that continues the protest and attempts to prevent the planned destruction of a temple. A friend of ours says that NanTing is threatened too, with plans to build a huge shopping centre on the land.

International Traders, Guangzhou

2008-05-30T12:40:00.001+01:00

Guangzhou is known in the import/export trade as an end selling point. Traders from all over the world come to buy wholesale products produced all over China, which eventually find their way to places like Guangzhou’s Yide International Exquisite Toy and Stationery Square, where we met Craig and Clem Eady. This father and son team run a wholesale business in Brisbane, established for 35 years and supplying about 150 clients back in Queensland, Australia. They are here for toys, army surplus, hardware and knives. “If you can find that factory somewhere in China or even in the back streets here, you can buy exceptionally well, but all the way down to Guangzhou, it will get dearer. And here, at the endpoint, it’s the dearest.”

We interviewed Craig, Clem and dozens of other traders from the five continents on video, asking about their relationship with Guangzhou, the sellers, and other traders they may encounter. Traders come because they believe this city has the cheapest products available in the world. On this 2-3 week visit Craig and Clem will spend around A$100,000 (650,000RMB). They visit 3 times a year and have been coming here for 8 years. Before Guangzhou, they used to buy in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

They tend to use the same sellers each year – regular customers should get a better price - until the seller does the wrong thing; like supply the wrong goods/quality, change the price, or leave goods behind so they miss the ship and have to be sent by plane instead (400 times dearer than ship). Clem says they will still pop in when there in town but and say “hello” – one of the few Chinese words that they know, other phrases being “too high”, “too low”, “how much”, “how many” – but won’t buy from them again.

They say a lot of the Chinese they deal with speak some English, plus they have help from interpreters and guides. But even when they’re doing business with the sellers that don’t speak a word, they can find a way to understand, such as negotiating price through the use of calculators.

Even though the community of traders is fragmented in time and place (and at times secretive), there are odd occasions when the network connects to exchange tips. Craig and Clem have only ever met one other Australian, but do bump into Americans - who usually get the better prices because they buy the largest amounts - and often put them on to things. Germans too! Because they are not competitors, it’s no skin off their nose. Craig remembers having a quick chat with a Middle Eastern guy at an airport baggage collection. Next minute the guy was on his laptop and getting him the address of a factory somewhere in China, which he said, has very good products at a very good price.

Wang Lin, Clothing Manufacturer & Wholesaler, Guangzhou

2008-05-30T12:35:00.001+01:00

Here is Wang Lin, general manager of Anna V (Anna Victoria) clothing, in his central Guangzhou office, showing off his pick of this seasons collection made in his factory outside of the city. His office is on the 6th floor of a huge building hosting hundreds clothing wholesalers, attracting buyers from all over China and the world.

It’s a family business, set up by his relatives in Taiwan. We met his wife, who was asleep at her desk when we walked in. His children help out at the factory when they are not in school. He made us tea, and we sat and chatted about his business; how it isn’t as good as it was and his strong sense of business ethics.

Anna V is their own Womenswear brand, with a new collection for each season – four times a year. They don’t have a designer; they just work things out for themselves. They don’t do fakes/rip-offs and they do pay taxes. His business operates almost entirely with returning, loyal customers. Sometimes his good customers, such as one Japanese man, drop in for tea three times a week when they are in town. Other clients come from Italy, USA, Iran, Iraq and Spain to name a few. The company also has a website and accepts orders direct to the factory through that.

They used to have a retail unit downstairs, but that became too expensive so now they only operate from this upstairs office. Wang Lin used to be able to manufacture and sell 1,000 units of each design in his seasonal collections, but now he says he can only sell 200 of each. He says he doesn’t make much money, as he has to pay his workers first. He employs 200 people at his factory.

He believes in doing business honestly and taking a long-term view. Trust, friendship and responsibility are the backbone of a business he wants to run like a family, and his family are happy. Rather than the short-term manufacture of fakes, which he believes is a non-sustainable business, he wants to build something lasting, to pass on to his children.

Wholesale Porters, Guangzhou

2008-05-30T12:33:00.001+01:00

Q011 is one of a 65 strong team of porters serving the massive clothing wholesale marketplace, Zhanxi Plaza; one of dozens of wholesale zones in Guangzhou trading clothes, fabrics, electronics, shoes, gifts, toys, clocks, watches, etc, each of which has its own dedicated team. These men – mostly migrant workers from outside Guangzhou – are a vital link in the despatch of goods throughout China and worldwide. They wanted us to take photographs of them, then we asked them if we could arrange to take a photograph of all of them all together and interview them about where they came from. After permission from their manager, they agreed to gather at 8.30 one morning. When we arrived, we were unceremoniously ignored. Apparently the porters had been instructed by their manager ‘not to talk to the foreigners’ for fear of participating in something that could end up illustrating a derogatory story about China, on the front page of a western newspaper. With the Olympics coming up, we were too hot to handle.

Secondhand clothes sellers, NanTing village

2008-05-30T12:30:00.004+01:00

Tradition, we were told, dictates that secondhand clothes are not worn in China, because people like everything to be ‘new’ and not tainted with the lives of others – same is true of furniture apparently (unless it’s a valued antique).

Hu Xiang Qian (second from right) and some fellow recent graduates from the nearby Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, have gone against the grain and set up business flogging ‘dead mans stuff’ so they can earn money to develop their art careers independently without relying on selling their work through China’s rampant art market.

Painted with Italian tricolor because Qian loves an Italian girl, and situated on the village’s tight main street amongst many other new, trendy, student-orientated shops, the shop opened for business on the first weekend of our stay. They sell t-shirts (for 20-30Yuan, £1.50-£2), shirts, hats and jeans - imported from Thailand and bought in bulk - mostly good quality, quirky stuff, with an ‘almost new’ feel. They helped us by hosting an installation of a photo project on the outside wall of their shop.

Camelôs, Rua 25 de março, São Paulo

2008-03-21T21:12:00.004Z

Pictured here (left to right) are Dener, his father-in-law and wife Simone. They’ve been selling replica designer t-shirts, retail and wholesale, from this regular pitch for 5 years. They are amongst the thousands of ‘camelôs’ (informal traders) working around Rua 25 de março; an extraordinary daily commercial battleground where thousands of Paulistas and visitors to São Paulo come for a bargain.

The father-in-law is not looking at the camera because he’s heard the call ‘o rapa’ and seen the oncoming Metropolitan Police. Background left, fellow traders who’ve also heard the call, begin to scoop up their stock into large bags. Seconds later, Dener quickly gathers all their stuff into their big denim bag (on the right), slings it over his shoulder and walks off.

This situation plays itself out every 10-15 minutes. The “o rapa” is called by the Camelôs to warn their fellow traders of the threat posed by police patrolling the street. A pair or a group of police take a slow walk down the street, prompting every Camelôs and their stock to disappear from view. A few minutes later, when the Police themselves have disappeared, traders return to their pitch. As our friend Tulio describes it, its like Moses parting the sea. Except, the police are not quite so benevolent. If the Camelôs are not quick enough, they risk their stock and equipment being confiscated (and appropriated by various government departments we are told), and ultimately, arrest.

Trading on the street begins about 3-4am, 6 days a week. We learnt from a man selling belts that Camelôs can sell in relative peace from 6-8am, without police interruption. Otherwise, the city’s policy is to use a consistent show of force to control and, it seems, eventually eradicate informal trade on this street. Everyday ends with a big 'o rapa' at around 4pm, when a flood of police and city trading officials prompts a mass exodus. The 'big one' started at the moment we where taking this photograph, so we were not able to get a picture with everyone’s full attention.

Dener and his family love what they do. He says they love the excitement, the community, the people, and the trade. They respect that the police have a job to do; even though they’ve had their stuff confiscated more times than they can remember. But they make a good living, R$100 profit most days. Earning more than when he was a civil servant in a youth prison, or when he worked on the armoured van cash deliveries/collections.

With their help we arranged some short, in-situ performances and photo/video shoots with their customers, and those of fellow traders up and down the street.

Not everyone seemed as comfortable with the police pressure, especially those who had lived in São Paulo for only a few weeks. Their eyes nervously flicking up and down the street to best see when the Horrapa is coming; a little like Simone's father.

Benjamin Abrahão, Higienópolis, São Paulo

2008-03-21T20:10:00.002Z

Raquel, (seen far left in this family portrait from some years ago) helps run the family business started by her grandfather Benjamin in the 1940s. He would bake bread, then sell it door-to-door. Then he got a stall, then a padaria (eat-in bakery) called Barcelona, the first of three they now own and run.

20 years ago, he and his wife designed and built Benjamin Abrahão’s o mundo de Pão (world of bread), in the heart of Higienópolis, which now employs 60 people on various shifts over 24hrs.

Benjamin died recently, leaving the family to preside over the production and sale of fine breads, pastries, cakes, chocolates, juices, etc. They’ve diversified, adding a new padaria in the Jardims, three outlets at three of the city's Universities, and a catering service for parties and events.

Our friend Marcia explained that life in the city would be impossible without neighbourhood padarias. She singled out Abrahão’s as the padaria, an example that others aspire too, with its iconic reputation built on quality and innovation. When padarias were starting off, all they offered was Pão Frances (French bread rolls), a breakfast staple sold by the kilo. Abrahão offered different types of bread and it was good, meaning lots of satisfied, returning customers.

Raquel says her grandfather travelled the world to learn the recipes and teach. Though she, her sister, mother and aunt, who all work in the business do not bake. He thought women would gossip in the kitchen and not work. His two grandsons, who were taught the trade, continue to introduce new ranges and one now works on a TV cookery programme.

One morning at Higienópolis, we timed photo shoots for the different customer communities; the maids at 6.30, the businessmen at 7.30, then the students and those with time to use the valet parking and a leisurely morning coffee.

Padaria Comunitaria de Itapevi, São Paulo

2008-03-21T20:09:00.003Z

This is Juraci, the manager of a Padaria Comunitaria (community bakery) in Itapevi, a town in São Paulo's periphery. She lives a short walk away and has worked here for 15 years, starting at 4am and baking all morning, six days a week. With a mix of trainees, voluntary and paid staff, they bake and sell 3,000 Pão Frances each day, selling at R$2.30 a kilo (about £0.70, a third of the cost in central São Paulo). They also make cakes, pastries, and carrot bread, all sold at less than market prices, as are the wedding or birthday cakes that can be made to order.

We arranged to document during their busiest time of the day, between 8-9am, with people on their way home from the night shift, on their way to their day job, or just buying bread for the day.

The Padaria is run as an non-profit organisation with the support of Secrtariat of Social Promotion and the municipal city hall. All the ingredients - sugar, flour etc. are paid for and delivered by the local government. It’s also run as a training centre where volunteers and local teenagers learn how to bake. One of the bakers/teachers says the pay isn't too good but she enjoys teaching and likes the people, so she stays working there.

We learnt that for the Padaria (and others) there’s an inextricable connection between employment and who you vote for. This year there is a local election for a new mayor and councillors. If the current opposition win, some current staff will be made redundant to be replaced by the supporters of the winner. Juracy along with Julio, the padaria’s long-standing security guard, are civil servants so their jobs are safe.

On one of our journeys to Itapevi, our friend Felipe said someone had said to him “why are you taking them there? It’s not São Paulo”. We spoke of the likelihood of these friends proudly stating São Paulo is the 3rd biggest city in the world with 22 million people. These 22 million include those in satellites like Itapevi, which make up the periphery.

Angelo Flores, Box 12, Mercado das Flores, São Paulo

2008-03-21T20:08:00.003Z

With over 22 Box stalls, the Mercado Das Flores stretches for some 300 metres outside the Cemeterio do Araca, in the Clinicas district of the city. Being on a busy roadside, it also provides an aromatic treat for a passenger or driver with their window open.

This is Sueli and Marco Aurelio. She's been working there for 20 years and he for 40. Like a number of stall holders, they are open 24 hours a day, sell both cut and potted flowers and buy stock from the large Ceasa flower market on the outskirts of the city. However, they are the only sellers who do business over the internet. Early mornings they snatch some sleep on a small mattress under the display.

We spent Friday evenings with them and the other sellers, asking customers for the story behind their purchase. For Sueli and Marco, business is not as busy as it used to be, as flowers are now more expensive. They have different customers at different times of the week. Most people pull up their car and buy flowers for special occasions, house decoration, or if it is late in the evening/early morning, for a party or apology flowers for their loved ones. Now, we were told, hardly anyone visits their family graves in the cemetery behind the stalls. Young people don’t do it. We did watch an older woman buy some yellow chrysanthemums; apparently, along with white chrysanths, the flowers of choice for graves.

Rose at Box 22 revealed that a few families do buy flowers for graves every Sunday morning, and have done for years. Also, if it is Mothers' Day, a birthday, Dia dos Finados (the Day of the Dead) then they will come on that day too. So that week, they'd come twice. But mostly, it’s passing traffic, buying for gifts and celebrations.

Floricultura Cardeal, São Paulo

2008-03-21T20:07:00.002Z

We spent two Sunday mornings with Antonio, who along with his sister Lucia, runs a pair of neighbouring flower shops close to the entrance of Cemeterio São Paulo, in the Pinheiros district of the city.

Antonio is Portuguese, came to Brazil as a young man and married here. He looks unbelievably good for 76, a fact he ascribes to hard work, faith and not abusing himself with alcohol and women. He starts work early enough in the morning to see night clubbers returning home; he bemoans the sight of young women/men drunk and out of control.

He handed Rebecca a simple printed prayer dedicated to a girl called Izildinha, ‘my kind little sister’. In a basic translation the prayer asks; for full devotion to the Father and the son; that the father and the son cover Izildinha with blessings and diminish the sufferings of all those that invoke Gods name; for repayment with good faith, and belief in the Father, the son and Izildinha; for a stripping of vanity, pride, envy and a forgiveness of evil and a dedication to love those closest; for happiness in the home; that honest work lead to life’s necessities; and that the bread earned be enough to feed those more needy.

The atmosphere on these Sunday mornings was far more contemplative than Clinicas. Away from the main road, not many customers. Some of those that we met were weekly visitors to family graves. We asked them the same question about the story behind their purchase.

Primo Mercado & Construction Materials, São Remo, São Paulo

2008-03-21T20:06:00.002Z

Here stands Diva (short for Divanete). She and her husband Primo run a popular Mercado and construction materials shop in the centre of São Remo. An estimated 3,000 people live in this hillside favela established over 30 years ago, and many people buy from their shop. They sell everything you need to run a household, plus confectionary and stationery. Next door they sell the essentials for building or extending a house, concrete, cement, bricks etc.

They were introduced to us as linchpins in the community by a community worker called Thelma. She shops there and works on a local education programme. Primo was recently President of the town council, following his activism after a tragic mudslide in the favela. During our time at Primo's, Diva took as many photographs of us as we did of her.

Alice, Avon Consultant, São Remo, São Paulo

2008-03-21T20:05:00.004Z

Alice sells Avon from the front room of her home where she lives with three generations of her family. She’s built her customer base from the community - everybody knows she’s the woman to go to for make-up. She no longer has to visit her client’s homes, they come to her and order from the catalogue. She doesn’t have the products in stock and puts in monthly orders to her regional supplier. She also has a sideline in small fashion items such as flip flops.

What interested us about Alice was her very local expression of a global brand. We photographed her clients outside her home, one of whom, her neighbour, Nilda, held a beautiful little dog called Totti, like the Italian footballer but pronounced Tor_che. It is one of the many pedigree ‘toy’ dogs owned in São Remo and interesting to see that show dogs are not the exclusive preserve of more affluent communities.

MTN Paint Shop, Rua 24 de Maio, São Paulo

2008-03-21T20:04:00.002Z

Diego runs a specialist paint shop for graffiti writers. Graffiti is an established form in the city, with a number of specialised galleries, and sanctioned or illegal projects on view. Diego even has a competitor! He gets around 50 customers a week, and sells a full spectrum of colours and different gauged nozzles for different spray patterns, narrow for tight line work, wider for fill. One customer involved in our photo shoot wore a nozzle on a lace around his neck.

The paint is imported from Spain. They pay an import tax and that makes the cost of a can quite expensive (R$13/£3.50). Sometimes Diego is asked to pay a bribe. He refuses and occasionally his products are impounded. When this happens, Diego absorbs the cost and doesn't pass it onto his customers. His competitor sells cheaper German paint but charges much more for the nozzles.

At present, the shop is situated on the 4^th floor of rundown Galeria Presidenta; one of many splendid Galerias in downtown Sao Paulo. Soon the shop will move to a more upmarket area, the Jardims. On the one hand, Diego thinks it will be good for his customers from the streets, favellas and periphery to have the experience of going to and feeling at home in the Jardims. On the other, he reckons what he calls ‘Playboy Writers’, who currently feel too intimidated to go to 24 de Maio, will buy more if he's in the Jardims. There'll also be social space for activities and some kind of display/exchange of ideas.

Train Vendors, CPTM train network, São Paulo

2008-03-21T20:03:00.004Z

Informal train vendors find themselves in a complicated situation at the moment. These are poor people who need to sell, but to do so they have to meet the challenge of the black-clothed security guards, which people call the “urubus” (an urubu is a kind of vulture).

The vendors appear on the trains, between stations, selling water, snacks, sweets, pens and other items small enough to carry en masse, and that passengers will want buy. The guards watch over every platform of every station and ride the trains, trying to inhibit the vendor's work. This everyday cat and mouse behaviour has gone on for some years, but now the train company (CPTM) are in the middle of a crackdown, allied to the cleansing and modernisation of their service, which seems to include getting rid of the vendors. Occasionally, armed police search suspected vendors (anyone who looks relatively poor and is carrying a bag) at the city's main station interchanges, and there is talk of undercover officers on the trains.

One passenger said the crackdown had lasted about a year. Before then, the vendors were quite well organised with each operating on certain tracks and so on. But now it's chaos and they are selling wherever and whenever they can. Another passenger said the vendors were so poor they would aspire to being a Camelhoe on Rua 25 de marco.

Their situation makes them hard to track down and work with in any depth. When we did, with help from our friend Felipe (pictured in the red T-shirt), it was difficult to gain their trust in the time they had between stops (suspecting we were undercover police). One seller we managed to speak to was Robinson, who had been working the train for three years to support his family. He works 6-7 hours a day, 6 days a week and buys stock from Bras market. That day, he was selling 10 pieces of bubblegum for R$1, despite having most of his stock taken by the police earlier on. Robinson calls himself and other train vendors 'Marreteiros'.

We also shot some video of others at work (with their permission) and caught a few snapshots.

Daslu, São Paulo

2008-03-21T20:02:00.002Z

Daslu is a super posh designer boutique come department store, now situated in Vila Olimpia. It's reputedly the most exclusive shopping experience in South America, but it has also attracted much unwanted controversy recently. Firstly, due to to the construction of its opulent new home right next to Coliseu, one of the city's many favelas, and secondly an investigation of its importation procedures and tax payments.

We asked to work with Daslu for another reason. They are renowned for the service they offer their customers including complimentary champagne, personal maids (the Dasluettes), and a helipad, 'So you don't have to been seen by anyone on the street'. They said no, but we went there anyway and took many of photos of the helipad (including those of this video), where we would have wanted to photograph their customers.

Seringueira tree, Vila Madelena, São Paulo

2008-03-19T14:34:00.006Z

In a collaboration with a local artist Tulio, we arranged to convene a small group of friends who buy marijuana from the same contact.

Lucinha's, Salvador

2008-01-27T18:33:00.001Z

Lucinha runs a 'quitanda' called "O Bar de Dona Lucia" in the Ribeira district of Salvador. A quitanda is a shop that has been set up in the front room of a house; it also means a small grocery shop. She sells mangos, salad leaves, spring onions, but mainly sells beer alongside home-flavoured cachaca and ginger/tamarind spirits. Customers can drink at the bar or at four plastic tables out on the pavement/street.

Lucinha doesn't have a licence to sell alcohol. The licences are expensive. Occasionally, the inspectors come by and she says it is not possible to pay for a licence (she makes profit of approx R$10 (or £3) from each crate of beer she sells). She visits the police station, explains her situation and they turn a blind eye. The mangos are almost entirely profit as she buys them either from street vendors who visit her shop or she goes to the market.

She started the shop with a couple of bottles of Cachaca and a carton of cigarettes from her father-in-law. Now, twenty years on, with the support of the business, the house has grown room by room and now stands two stories high. More importantly, it supports her, her husband, her two daughters and her son's ex-wife and three children, all of whom live with her in the house.

Rosalvo, Mar Grande, Ilha da Itaparica

2008-01-27T18:29:00.002Z

Rosalvo (pronounced HosARvo) is a farmer who grows and then sells fruit and vegetables door-to-door from the back of his donkey named Medalha. He is a "vendedor ambulante", literally a mobile, walking shop. Seven days a week he leaves his smallholding at around 7am with Medalha laden with coconuts, aipims, cashew fruits, roasted cashew nuts, lemons and bananas (the produce varies with the seasons), for a one hour ride to reach his first cliente (customer) in Mar Grande.

We met Rosalvo through our interpreter, Wilma, who is also one of his clientes. Her gardener's mother lives near Rosalvo's mother so Wilma was able to cycle up to the mother's house and leave a note asking for Rosalvo to visit her house to discuss the project with us.

We arranged to joined him for a four hours one Saturday morning to photograph his clientes, walking his regular route, winding through the dusty roads on the outskirts of the town to the beach front houses and the town centre. During this time he took about R$60 (17 UK pounds). Our day with Rosalvo was extremely hot, and whilst we and Medalha drank a few litres of water, Rosalvo drank none. When we mentioned this later, someone said some Brazilian men are made of leather.

Even later, Luis at Sacatar recounted a childhood memory of a similar enterprise in his aunt's home town, Vitoria da Conquista, Bahia. Using donkeys' ability to be trained to remember a route, the farmer's donkey, straddled with two churns of freshly drawn milk would walk the route on its own, stopping at pre-arranged places where clientes would take what they needed and honour the farmer and pay in person at the end of each month.

Casa Preto Velho, Salvador

2008-01-27T18:26:00.001Z

The suitably named Casa Preto Velho in Salvador's notorious market Feira de Sao Joaquim, specialises in religious articles for various faiths practiced in and around Bahia, including Catholicism, Umbanda and Candomble. 'Casa' in this case means shop, whilst the meaning of "Preto Velho" is much much spiritual. According to our friend Sabrina, "Pretos Velhos are Umbanda spirits of former slaves who managed to live to a ripe old age (unlike most) and represent wisdom, benevolence, faith and humility. Umbanda is a uniquely Brazilian religion that combines African divinities (orixás), Spiritism, a variety of Afro-Brazilian and European spirits and Amerindian Caboclos". Similarly Candomble is a popular Afro-Brazilian religion, and is worshipped by millions of Brazilians with Bahia being its hot-bed.

Statuettes (like the Preto Velho and Preta Velha pictured above) are part of one of the largest selections of ceremonial regalia in the city, so it's a really important and busy place. The store is packed to the rafters with statuettes of all sizes of all the 'spirits of devotion' as well as clothing, crockery, candles, beading, incense, herbs, statuettes, drums, DVDs and literature. In the build-up to photographing the store's customers, we were speaking with a Candomble family, when something rarely seen and powerful happened. A daughter in the family was temporarily possessed by her spirit of devotion.

LITORAL Mercado, Ilha da Itaparica

2008-01-27T16:47:00.001Z

This is Fabio and his father Guido. Guido owns and runs a grocery store called LITORAL Mercado in Itaparica Town. He set up the shop with and for his family. Because of the low income on the island - the average minimum wage being R$400 per month (£120) - the shop has to sell a little bit of everything at decent prices to keep itself going. They will also order items not usually available, especially for non-locals who might be missing something from their home town. One customer doesn't like the bread so Guido gets different bread delivered by motorbike from the other side of the island. The store has been open since Carnaval 2007 and is one of a growing number of independent shops in a town where few existed five years ago. They offer credit for people they know - which is a typical system on the island - but need to manage it carefully so cash flow doesn't put their business at risk. Guido worked for many years as a manager of a supermarket in nearby Bom Despacho, as well as a waiter at the local marina. Fabio said his father dreamed of opening up his own enterprise, so saved money until he was able to do so. With LITORAL he has generated relatively secure jobs for his family (children and siblings), which would have been hard to find elsewhere.