HAWKING: Is the type of small retail trade that involves the carrying of goods from one place to another either on head, by carts or by wheelbarrows. People who indulge in this type of retail trade are called Hawkers or Itinerant traders.
FEATURES OF HAWKING
- Prices are competitive
- It is energy sapping and prone to accidents
- It requires relatively small capital outlay.
- It involves moving about.
- It is usually a one-man business
- It deals in various articles.
Advantages
- It is the cheapest form of retail trade
- It offers employment to the unemployed
- Hawkers prices are relatively cheap.
- It serves as a stepping-stone to bigger business
- It provides door-to-door services to customers.
Disadvantages
- Hawking along major commercial roads endangers hawker’s life to the risks of accidents.
- It exposes young girls to sex which results to unwanted pregnancies.
- Hawkers Constitute environmental nuisance in urban cities because of the remains of their ware they drop any how along the streets.
- It is a sort of child abuse because most hawkers are deprived of education.
- Hawking practice discourages the development of market stalls.