I am in Chennai, India enjoying a few weeks of vacation with family. Chennai is now a totally different city from the one I grew up in - including the name itself. The city known as Madras before decided to shed the name given by the British and go by its original tamil name of Chennai.
It has been an interesting trip so far. Yesterday I was talking to a flower woman who buys jasmine flowers in the wholesale market every morning at 3 am and then sells it in the city in small quantities. She told me about the predictable but changing prices of flowers - the flowers were most expensive on Thursdays as the demand for them exceeded the supply on Fridays. But there was no way she could avoid paying the high prices on Thursday as they would wilt and get brown if she bought them earlier. I told her about the tulips in Amsterdam and explained the Dutch auction and how it worked. "Oh that," she said non-chalantly. The sellers use that when a large truckload of jasmine flowers arrive and they need to get rid of them quickly. They set it at 500 rupees per bundle and if no one buys them they reduce it by 25 rupees till someone like me buys them. Flowers sell very quickly that way, she explained.
So much for my detailed explaining! The flower sellers in Chennai probably never heard of tulips or Dutch auctions but are using the same method whenever appropriate. This is one case when recreating the wheel is not a bad thing. Each one creates a wheel to their specific needs. Dutch auctions in Chennai - what an awesome concept!
