Problem Statement:

Dhaka is one of the fastest growing mega-city in the world, with an

estimated of 300000 to
400000 new migrants, who are arriving to the city annually. Connected with
this rural-urban migration, the number of street vendors is also getting large
in Dhaka city. Because, as it is the capital and also the largest city of
Bangladesh, the new migrants, especially those who cannot get join in formal
job sectors, easily get influenced and fascinated by one particular informal
job sector, which is petty trading or street vending. According to the Dhaka
City Corporation there are around 90000 street vendors in the city, mostly
located in commercial areas.

Street vendors are an aspect of urban life throughout the world; either it is
developed or developing country. It is figured out that the traders of informal
sector try to fill an important function in providing goods and services at
relatively low price to lower income city dwellers, but the problems faced by
these petty traders are abundant. The main prominent problem of them is
that they dont have any job security and their business is uncertain. Street
vending is a required issue for a large number of urban dwellers to sustain in
their long run of livelihood. Most of the petty traders are constantly facing
many problems and uncertainties by local authorities. Along with that, petty
trading is also considered as an illegal trade and the petty traders face
constant harassment from the authorities. Usually informal street traders
face some common problems like economical stress, socio-cultural chal-
lenges, undesirable political conditions and operational challenges.

In reality, it is experimental that a petty trader has to compete with a lot of

initial problems before setting off on a petty trading activity. Many of them
have no option but to enter this informal street vending because they cannot
find employment in the formal sector, or they earn insufficient income.
Finding initial investment through savings or loans is especially problematic
for them, as they cannot afford bank loans. Lower demand by consumers,
limited product discrimination and more rivalry from new traders can lead to
an overall drop in consumer demand resulting in varying and lower profits.
Not only that, the petty traders are working and investing their small capital
for the business in which they are taking a big risk. The vendors also have to
pay a generous part of their income as bribes in order to keep plying their
trade on the roadsides. The common problems faced by the petty traders are
related to investment and financing as banks and other financial institutions
are unwilling to lend the petty traders for their job insecurity.
Significance:

The findings of the study will redound to the benefit of society considering
that petty trading plays an important role in society today. The role of petty
traders can be analyzed in terms of their contribution to the society. Petty
trading is an established socioeconomic action serving a huge number of the
low-income population in rapidly urbanizing developing countries.

Petty trade is the moral fiber of most of the traders as it has bring
improvements in the lives of the respondents as they were more able to
undertake most of the cases that they could not when they were not
engaged in petty trading. This study offers the efficient procedures to be
done in order to progress the status of petty trading. A large number of
people are generating income by petty trading which helps them and their
dependent family members to live from hand to mouth. A petty trader in the
urban informal sector not only creates job for himself/herself, but also
provides employment although in a limited way to his/her family directly or
indirectly. This is a source of employment for the people who are illiterate,
unskilled and lacks capital can easily generate income by involving in this
job. Their dependent family members are also benefited in this way.
Moreover, petty traders are depicting very useful service to the community
of our country. These days women participation in petty trading is also very
common among Dhaka city. Selling vegetables, fruits, street food stalls for
snacks are some common trades for women at present days. The main focus
of this study is to find out the impact of petty trading on income generation,
employment generation and affording service to the people of Dhaka city. In-
spite of having risk in this sector, there is a requirement to know the nature
of petty trading and its contribution for the urban poor.

Objectives of the study:

The general objectives of this study are to examine the earning level of petty
traders, their access to finance, working hours as well as working status, and
their level of education.
The specific objectives are:

To investigate the various types of products and services offered by the

petty traders
To study the types of petty traders along with their employment
background and status
To identify the major types of risks connected with their employment
To figure out and analyze the impacts of petty trading

Research Questions:

The main research question is:

Is petty trading becoming an effective and easier way for the urban poor to
get involved in informal sector of Dhaka city being the entrepreneurs of the
road?

The sub questions are:

Is it a better self-employment scope in informal sector?

How petty trading is contributing on household income and poverty
reduction?
What are the problems and insecurity faced by the petty traders?
Is rural-urban migrant one of the reason of influencing petty trading in
Dhaka city?
What are the negative consequences of petty trading?

Methodology:

Research methodology is a systematic way to solve a problem. It is a science

of studying how research is to be carried out. Essentially, the procedures by
which researchers go about their work of describing, explaining and
predicting phenomena are called research methodology. It is also defined as
the study of methods by which knowledge is gained. This research is being
focused on petty traders of Dhaka city. This is basically an investigation
focusing on the roadside entrepreneurs earning capacity and employment
opportunities. The research has been conducted by using Qualitative
Research tool as by indentation of qualitative research only the research can
achieve its desired result. The research was carried out based on primary
data. Considerable attempt was made to develop the appropriate sample
plan. The target population was the street vendors in Dhaka City. The
sampling frame of the study was the Metropolitan area of Dhaka city. The
research was conducted in a small scale. In order to have an idea on the
background characteristics of petty traders, a socio-economic survey was
conducted on 10 randomly selected samples of petty traders from
Dhanmondi, Shukrabad and Banani. I spent some time interacting and
consulting with them. And also I observed their activities during their
business hour to get a clear picture of their trading policies.

Research Ethics:

The ethical standard for conducting such research had been strictly held. At
the very beginning of my interview process, my respondents were informed
that this research is being conducted strictly for research reasons, no harm
or benefits could be done to the respondents through the research and no
monetary benefits would be provided during the field work. It was also
confirmed to the respondents that their name and address will be
confidential during the time of report writing. Respondents had freedom to
withdraw from the interview at any time; he/she had the right not to answer
any questions if unwilling and participation had been voluntary. The time set
for the meeting had been maintained thoroughly. No irrelevant or personal
questions were asked. The answers of the respondents had been recorded
with a tape recorder as this assures accuracy to write down interviews.

Sources of Data:

Both primary and secondary data have been used in my research. While
primary data have guided me to conclude an authentic and original
conclusion, the secondary data have been a guideline for the research. The
source of secondary data was various scholarly journals and articles, reports
prepared by different development organizations working in the relevant
field, newspaper reports, and books.

Research Locations

The research location was in Dhanmondi, Banani and Shukrabad area of

Dhaka. As my research was self-funded, financial constraint has not allowed
me to conduct my field work beyond Dhaka city. The identified location,
therefore, has been suitable for me. The area has been chosen as it was
accessible for me and there were plenty of petty traders which I was looking
for.

Respondents:

The respondents were comprised of 10 random petty traders among the area
include Banani, Dhanmondi and Shukrabad of Dhaka city. And there were two
journalists from print media and online portal selected for this research
paper.

Sampling Issues

The sample size has been a moderate one consisting of 10 respondents who
has been chosen randomly from the selected location. The respondents were
from both sexes and from different locations. For the research, 2 journalists
have been interviewed for the in-depth knowledge on this issue. These
interviews have provided important information and ideas which have helped
me to bring to an end to the research. For obvious reasons, the names of the
resource personnel were not used in the report rather pseudo names have
been provided.

Identity of Number
Interviewees
Randomly selected petty 10 (7 + 3)
traders of selected area
(Male + Female)
 Journalists (from print 2 (1 + 1)
media and online portal)
Total 12

Limitations of the paper:

The major limitation of the research is that the research was a self funded one and therefore,
financial constraint refrain me from conducting the research in a large scale. The short duration
of the 3-month research period is a prime factor to limit the scope of the research. This also
bounded me from going outside of Dhaka city for fieldwork. I conducted my field work in the
urban area which provided me a comparative understanding of approach towards petty traders of
different areas in Dhaka city. However, due to aforementioned limitations, I was unable to
conduct my field work in different areas which were important too. The participation of the
respondents has been voluntary, so, I faced problems of getting a smooth field work and
uninterrupted data collection. Sometimes I had to buy products from the petty traders to get their
opinion in terms to Ice-break.

Outline of the Research paper:

The research paper is divided into five chapters. The first chapter has established the identity of
petty traders with their jobs. This also has given the rationale, objectives and the research
question of the study. The methodology has been portrayed here with other necessary
information of the study. The second chapter has shown the works of the prior academicians on
petty trading and their success theory. Based on the prior works, the operational definition and
the probable theoretical framework have also been pictured here on the basis of which the overall
research has been conducted. The third chapter includes data analysis which captured the
approximate true picture and condition of petty traders. This chapter has explained the position
and situation of the street vendors transparently. The fourth chapter is all about the opinion of
journalists and what impact does this street vending has on society. The last chapter has the
concluding remarks of the study by providing the findings and the recommendation of the
research.