I came back on Hive after almost two years of hibernation and used https://hive.blog by default as I forgot how the other dapps work in the Hive ecosystem. Now I tried to use others and surprise, I have two draft contents on one of the dapps! The other one is already out of context so I discarded it. The second one is about prices during the quarantine in 2020 but the main theme still applies today so here it is.
It was because of the quarantine that I discovered an FB group of our community residents. In that group was also where I discovered that we have informal settlers inside our village. The informal settlers were asking for help because they lost their jobs due to the quarantine. The post said there are nine families in that part of the village and I thought of helping in my own little way through relief packs.
I did my groceries for the relief packs in the supermarket. One of the most common relief goods we give away is instant noodles because of its ease of preparation. So by default, it was one of my targets.
I took 18 packs of the instant noodles but when I reached the cashier, she held me up. She said maximum of five is allowed for each customer because of anti-hoarding as mandated by the government.
Unlike the canned goods, there was no notice on the shelves of instant noodles so I thought it was not limited. I begged the cashier to let me take at least nine but she said they are being monitored so she can not do it. That means their POS, point-of-sales system, is being monitored.
I gave up and thought of just buying the rest in variety stores (what we call as sari-sari store) in the neighborhood. However when I got to a variety store, I was shocked with the price. Twelve pesos per pack. How much was it in the supermarket? It was PhP 7.75! Even if we round that off to eight pesos, 50% markup to 12 pesos does not sound fair to me. Instead of buying to complete 18 packs (2 packs per family), I ended up just completing nine. While I can afford the twelve pesos, I can not fully give in to the overpricing.
"This is how the poor gets poorer." I thought. Most poor people can not afford to or do not go to supermarkets at all to buy their essentials. They just go to the variety store in the neighborhood.
My thoughts ran through more of this challenge that the poor has to bite and swallow maybe even without them realizing how much they are losing. This happened even before the pandemic and is still going on.I feel sorry just thinking about it.
Months ago before the pandemic, I once ran out of shampoo so the variety store in the neighborhood was my saviour. One sachet costed eight pesos. By-six pack of sachets costed PhP 25.50 at the supermarket which makes it PhP4.25 per sachet. PhP4.25 in supermarket versus PhP8.00 in variety store. That is 88.24% markup which the poor has to bear. That is too expensive being poor!
It was few months ago when I had to run for shampoo at the neighborhood. It was PhP 7.00 per sachet. Cheaper in the province than in the city, huh? Even so, the cost at the supermarket is still way much cheaper than in the neighborhood.
Cost per dozen of sachets in the supermarket is PhP 56.10 which makes it PhP 4.675 per sachet. That is still 49.73% markup for the poor to bear.
Retail price in the grocery store is PhP 5.10 per sachet which means 37.25% markup, again, for the poor to bear. And again, that is too expensive being poor. According to my professor in business school, 20% markup is the fair level.
The sample computations above may sound cheap with less than ten pesos differences. But let's just try to imagine the aggregated costs if a poor continues living this way. It is no wonder why it is very common to hear their grievances of "it is too hard and almost impossible to save." This is because they keep on chasing money for their expensive yet not so luxurious stuff.
I talked about shampoo only but the case is practically the same for all commodities. A few times when we needed help from our neighbor store before my grocery schedule at the supermarket,we notice the very high price markup, from cooking oil to eggs to powdered milk and more, This is one of the reasons why the rich becomes richer and the poor gets poorer. So if you are poor, now you know a technique not to be one. Certainly, you do not go to the supermarket every now and then. Do your best to manage a schedule for groceries.
Be expensive rich, not poor!
