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Portable gas stoves sell like hot cakes among street vendors
SEE, IT WORKS FINE: An employee at Surya Timur shop in Jembatan Lima, West Jakarta, checks the condition of a portable gas stove to be sold to a customer Thursday
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SEE, IT WORKS FINE: An employee at Surya Timur shop in Jembatan Lima, West Jakarta, checks the condition of a portable gas stove to be sold to a customer Thursday. (JP/Agnes Winarti)
Small businesses and street vendors in Jakarta are seeking ways to profit from the government-ordered transition from kerosene to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).
Some businesses, like a household appliance shop in Jembatan Lima, West Jakarta, have creatively assembled LPG stoves suitable for the high mobility needs of their major consumers, mostly street food vendors.
"I bought this new gas stove at a shop in Jembatan Lima. This kind of stove is selling like hotcakes there," a pancake seller in Petamburan, Central Jakarta, said recently.
The owner of the Surya Timur shop, 57-year-old Willy Rianto, said for the past two weeks he had been selling up to 60 of the stoves a day.
"On a slow day, I can still sell some 20 of these gas stoves," he said.
Willy said he started selling the portable gas stoves last year.
"Right when the government began to distribute free gas stoves and three-kilogram LPG canisters," he said.
He said he got the idea to assemble gas stoves similar to the kerosene ones used by street vendors after discovering a certain factory-made gas stove that was small enough to fit into vendors' existing stove stands.
The gas stoves distributed by the government are too bulky to fit into vendors' carts.
"It only took me a couple of days to figure out how to assemble a gas stove similar to the factory-made ones," said Willy, who had been in the stove and household appliance business since 1960.
He sells the portable gas stoves for Rp 130,000 for an assembled stove and Rp 135,000 for a factory-made one. Willy also sells a complete package of stove with a 1.5 meter gas pipe, a gas regulator and a gas lighter, for Rp 240,000 to Rp 260,000.
"My customers mostly are vendors selling noodles, fried rice, fried chicken and fried snacks," Willy said.
Amperiana, a vendor who sells salted eggs, came from Kalideres, West Jakarta, to buy a gas stove at Willy's shop.
"I bought my previous kerosene stove here," he said.
"I think it's about time to switch to an LPG stove, because the fire produced from LPG is faster to heat up compared to kerosene.
"I probably will only need some five hours instead of the usual eight to cook some 3,000 salted eggs a day," said Amperiana, who sells the eggs to traditional markets and food catering companies.
Asked about the safety of his assembled stoves, Willy said, "We always make sure to check the stove in front of our buyers, by connecting the stove to the gas tube and lighting the fire."
"If there is any leak, the fire would immediately spread to the leak hole," he said, while serving a fried rice vendor from Pademangan, North Jakarta.
Willy also said, "Besides checking the condition of the stove, customers must also be more careful when buying a gas regulator. If the gas regulator is damaged or too thin, it can leak gas from the tube, thus causing an explosion if there is fire nearby."
