Posted by emily on Monday, May 15, 2017 in 2017 Blog post.

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Today, May 15th around 5 o’clock, I went to the beach to observe the interactions at the beach. Something that really stands out here in Cefalù that does not happen at the beaches at home in San Diego are the vendors that consistently bombard you with their products. Sitting on the steps, I watched many Asian women walk up to people laying on the beach trying to sell their massage services to them. They are about 40-60 years old and they wear very bright clothes and bright crocs on their feet. I speculated that the bright clothes are to attract attention to themselves as a business technique. The actual clothes they wear are very similar to the clothes that young children wear in the United States. The backpacks that they have are actual children’s backpacks some with characters like Winnie the Pooh on the outside. These women remind me of many of the Asian women in America that work in the nail salon business, however, the women in the nail salon are generally dressed much nicer, which leads me to believe that these women here in Cefalù are very poor–even poorer than the nail salon ladies in America.

I watched these women walk up and down the beach approaching every single person laying down. They would not take no for an answer. When “no” was said, they would respond with “Why not?” or “Come on.” or even “You want it. You want it today.” They never talked in a demanding tone, but more of a pleading way asking you to invest in them. The only way around them was to completely ignore them, meaning no eye contact, no movement, no talking–really the only way was just pretending you were asleep. The second you even looked in their direction they would come talk to you and pester you, and it was completely in their control as to when they would leave you alone. In my opinion this is a very great technique to selling because people cannot run away, like they do in America when anyone tries to sell anything. For instance, in America there are newspaper vendors on the sides of streets and people can ignore them by just driving by or walking away. Similarly, outside of grocery stores when vendors are trying to sell things or ask for money, people can just walk in the store or out past them to their cars to avoid them. This is the difference between having a stationary vendor and moving people that the vendor is trying to target versus here in Italy where the targets are stationary and the vendor is the only one moving. I don’t know about you, but that sounds much easier to me!

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Additionally, the Asian massage ladies carried flyers around so that they not only were talking about their services, but they were showing them along with the prices as well. The massages themselves were only 5 euros which makes me question how much these ladies actually make on the daily and if it is even enough to support themselves let alone any family they might have. This is likely why they do not take “no” as an answer. They are likely immigrants that are trying to make a living on the work that they are doing and therefore they put all their effort into selling their massages. Something that sticks out to me is that there were no Asian men trying to sell their massage services. This makes me wonder whether these women came to Cefalù because they couldn’t find work wherever they are from or if it is because of the culture in their homeland that made them want to get away and start a new life. Is it because women are not as respected as men in Asian countries and therefore wanted to escape?

Similar to the Asian massage ladies, there were dark skinned men selling tapestries. I believe they were either Indian or Arabian, but I could not tell for sure. They had a very similar selling style to the massage ladies. They were covered in clothes head to toe with a long sleeve flannel, vest, cargo pants, and closed toe shoes. The difference between them and the massage ladies was that these men were wearing dark clothes that did not attract attention. I believe this is because they are selling brightly colored tapestries and they want the tapestries to stand out. To attract people’s attention to them they would whip the tapestries in the air back and forth so that they would fly in the wind. Instead of approaching every single person they would go up to groups of people and wave the tapestries and ask in general if anyone wanted to buy. Their tone of voice was much louder than the massage women almost as if they were screaming just to the public. This reminded me of the people trying to sell peanuts or hot dogs in the stands at baseball games. However, at baseball games the vendors are only looking for people who flag them down and tell them they want to buy. Here, the vendors selling the tapestries  would target any person that said yes or no. When I was sitting there a vendor approached me. I told him no and he did not take that for an answer (surprise). He came up to me even closer and stuck the fabric in my face. He insisted that I feel the fabric because he was showing me how nice they were. I felt it and then just ignored him and waited until he left. I eventually saw this specific vendor pack up and leave the beach which made me interested in where he lives, where he was going to, and where he came from and why he came here. Part of me thinks that maybe the vendors are homeless, but then again, they do not look as impoverished as the homeless people do in San Diego. I never saw any tapestries actually getting sold so I wonder if any actually get sold. Who knows, maybe the tapestry men are getting paid from a higher source just to stand out there and try to sell them.

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Some questions that I still have about both types of vendors are: are the vendors on the beach legal? If so, do they get permits first? If not, do they ever get in trouble from police? I know that if people were trying to sell things at the beaches back at home they definitely would need permits and get in trouble if they didn’t have them.

Overall, the interactions between vendors and the targets they are trying to sell to in Cefalù are much different than back in America. The vendors in Cefalù are much more aggressive and pushy, but their tactics of going after stationary targets are a great business strategy. I believe the vendors here in Cefalù are immigrants from their home countries trying to make a living here and targeting tourists. I think that in the summer time when more tourists start to come, there will be an increase of immigrants trying to sell their services and products. Cefalù may be a great spot for tourists, but may be an even greater spot for immigrants!