[Stoves] What will people pay for a stove?

[Xavier Brandao]

Dear all,

 

I think affordability and willingness to pay are two very different things.
The latter can be way below the first if the people do not know your
product, do not know you, if your product is not attractive and is not a
priority for them. In the urban areas of South Benin, people have money.
Well for African people, they do have money, when they want to.

 

Charlie Sellers rightly pointed out " in Central/South America I certainly
see the leaking of cash on hand - no matter how low the local income, kids
seem to have money for a frozen chocolate covered banana". It is the same in
Benin, to an even larger extent : if they easily buy small milk ice cream
"Fan Milk" (100 F, or 20 cents of dollars) , they can buy a few beers for
friends at the table during weekends (a few thousands francs, let's say up
to 10 dollars). When a even remote member of the family dies, they organise
very expensive ceremonies with the extended family, friends, even with
accointances. They rent tables, chairs, shelters, audio equipment, they eat
and drink until they get sick. They can go in debts just for a memorable
ceremony. But they will already find a fuel-efficient 10 dollars stove
expensive. Stoves are usually sold from 1 to 5 dollars. A good ceremony is
never too expensive, a stove can be.

 

So we have to start thinking like developing countries customers, not like
Western engineers. An inventor can make a great and sophisticated stove,
intelligently using heat transfer and conservation principles, customers
won't see easily what is so great about it, and if it is too expensive, it
will not be more than a prototype. 

I think the first thing to do for a Western entrepreneur / project leader
working on a stove project in Africa, and certainly in the developing world,
is to study ethnology and sociology of the local area. To get to think like
the people he / she work for.

 

Dr. N. Sai Bhaskar Reddy said : "Sustainability model - This is demand based
adoption of good stove - community can afford and are also willing. In this
model Good Stoves would be adopted, because best stoves are costly or
community is not ready to adopt. In the future many current best stoves
become good stoves as we always try to work on the best."

I agree : a sustainable model has to be demand-based. I like this concept of
"good stoves" and "best stoves". We should be cautious with the salability
of best stoves. As a businessman, I'd rather sell a good 5 dollars stove
than a best 80 dollars stove. If it is only saving 40% charcoal rather than
90%, well, that's good enough if I can reach 50 000 people rather than 1000.

 

I have the feeling the "stove world" sometimes lacks a marketing approach.
We shouldn't need to educate and sensitize people about a stove. Does
Coca-Cola educate people about its products? They make products that appeal
to the people, wherever in the world and are salable right away. Principles
of marketing basically say that we should make the product likable to the
people, not make the people like our product. We have to think the other way
round! We have to shift from a serious, practical, boring object to a cool,
sexy object. This has to be done by designing, branding, packaging,
marketing. There's room for improvement here! I am sure that people would
not only buy stoves because of their quality and efficiency. A big part of
their decision to buy resides in the fact they love their design, they saw
the advertisement on TV, because it is a know brand and it is an object of
status. What you call intangible reasons. We are all the same, when we buy,
it is often with the heart, not with the brain.

 

About the concept of a universal stove, I do not agree with the idea there
isn't a universal stove. The design of a nice-looking manufactured stove
like Stovetec, Philips or Envirofit stoves, is likely to appeal to 90% of
the customers of the developing and developed world alike. If it is in a
nice package, with a nice sticker, if it is colourful, it will be
"universally" accepted. An easy to make, easy to use smokeless charcoal
stove, which save 50% of charcoal compared to most traditional stoves, and
made of sheet metal you can find everywhere, is likely to be a successful
product, whatever the market. I think a price of 5 dollars, except in some
areas like Zambia, is a universal price, etc. etc. 

This kind of charcoal stove is the one I am looking, by the way :) For the
moment the Pulumusa and the improved Malgache are the most universal I could
find.

 

I am rather new in the stove field, and I first got some difficulties to
find my way in stoves : so many prototypes, models, versions. I think
stovers should start to organize information, and propose a list, with very
detailed and comprehensive plans, of the best stoves in each category, so
they are ready to use. They should tend to make universal stoves, to attract
entrepreneurs that do not necessarily have a training of thermal engineer.

 

Cheers,

 

Xavier Brandao

 

(+229) 66 37 89 59

xvr.brandao at gmail.com

skype : x.brandao

 

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