The Bigger Deal!!??? Really??

When the price of petrol goes up everything goes up....It is bad when a trader tried to take advantage of the situation by hiking up the prices more than 20 cents for each products even if the are no connections to the increases in the petroleum price. However the efforts by the authorities, (in this case the Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry) to curb errant traders not only did not address the problem but could be detrimental to the economy and also the livelihood of most small time traders.

The authorities recently launched Smart Consumers Campaign and would help to identify outlets offering goods at bargain prices. Among it would be Tesco, the venue where the campaign was launched. How dumb could it be??? Why??

Basically most consumers have already identifies with the outlet identities which has already been to offer lower prices than most. These kind of outlets such as Tesco, Giant and Carrefour do no need the government endorsement. In fact it acts as a free advertisement for their outlets. Despite the Minister Datuk Shafie Apdal saying that the ministry would identify the supermarkets that offer low prices and gave publicity in the media, after several days none of the small or medium size supermarkets have been feature in the media. How hard could it be to identify these supermarkets??? Let's see how hard it is especially the Ministry did not specify in what terms they are going to choose the outlets or supermarkets.

What the Minister did not take into considerations, these big stores; hypermarkets can afford to offer the low prices. They can absorb more of the increasing cost and their profit have always been bigger than some small traders. It is simple theory of ecomomics of scale. The more you buy, the less the cost would be. As a hypermarkets, they amount that they are buying from the suppliers would be massive. Therefore they would entitle to discounts or the cost of transportations etc would be able to be spread out to more things. Therefore it is unfair to expect the other traders to compete at the same level with these giants especially they were already outclass in terms of selections and prices prior to the price increase in petroleum.

It is fine if Malaysians choose to shop at these places themselves. However to give an endorsement and encouragement for people to abandon small time traders and small supermarkets are plain wrong especially considering the adverse effect it will brought to the economy. In fact these small supermartkets or grocery shops might end up closing due to shift of trends by consumers. The numbers of these hypermarkets has already been mushrooming like mad recently. Add in these additional pressure from the government, one can only imagine the effects.

Some people might said so what if these shops closed?? However bear in mind that a lot of these traders are dependent on their shops as their source of income. We would be creating more unemployment cases and it is quite illogical for the government to encourage the unemployed graduates to become entrepreneurs while at the same time working to destroy these small shops. Furthermore, since most of the hypermarkets are not locally own, the profit gain in Malaysia would be going out of the country. Therefore it is bad for our current exchange. Simple stuff. Perhaps it is too simple that our 'geniuses' at the Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry failed to comprehend. So... What is your opinion regarding these?