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The Retail Experience in the Philippines
Just finished chatting to a friend in Manila that told me they can finally get good nights sleep after 12 mths of sleeping on foam mattresses. Apparently something as basic as a spring mattress can be difficult to find. He found one that was actually manufactured in the Philippines by luxor for 26,000 (about $464). It was meant to be a discount too with the normal retail being $750. The mattress he got was the top of their line and needed to be ordered.
Shopping in the Philippines is a different experience. I will share with you another extract from the July 2005 Philippine Dreams Newsletter :
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…Another example of my initial frustration was the retail experience. You go into a modern shopping mall and you see all the modern consumer goodies you are used to back home. For a moment you lull yourself into a false sense of security. Then you actually try and buy something. In many of the big department stores, you see row after row of merchandise. Every row has its clerk. Great service you think. Well, the reality is you will be lucky to find a clerk who actually knows much about what is in their charge. They know how to keep the shelves tidy and presentable, but product knowledge was not in their training program. In some of the smaller stores, prayer meetings replace staff training!
If you actually find what you are after then you face the purchasing hurdle. There will be one open register for every three thousand shoppers. It will be staffed by no less than three clerks. One will take the item and look at it wistfully, wondering if they could ever afford to buy one. They will hand it to the cashier who will ring up the item while wondering if they could ever afford one then pass it to the bagger who will also wonder if they could ever afford one. They will slowly fold and pack away the item to survive not only the trip home in the jeepney, but possible air-dropping from a C-130. Or they will break it. All of this takes forever. As you leave the store the guard on the exit door will check the bag and make a mark on the stapled on receipt. Customer service and increased sales have no place in the planning and execution of retailing in the Philippines. It is all about security. Preventing employee theft by having several people involved in the purchasing procedure followed by the final check and balance of the guard and his pen.
Stores of national standing don’t carry expensive items as they sell slowly and can be coveted for theft. So they are an on order item only. One example is the world’s biggest selling piece of software after Windows. Microsoft’s Word. Either they didn’t carry stock as it was too expensive or they would order it in for you. Most of us would expect a store that sold computers would also sell the software to run on them, right? Not so here bucko. Surely the clerk would jump at selling a major item such as a notebook computer, right? Wrong. Even if you can get them to serve you the chances are their product knowledge is zero or else they are so shy they are speechless! I have met some outstanding exceptions, but the rule is they will know very little and be even less inclined to actually serve you. Part of that is they do not wish to be shown up as being incompetent. Even if they are.
It’s not just computers where there is such a lack of competence. Cars, clothes, food; you name it. Incompetence (by western standards) is the name of the game. Forget the job ads that insist on college graduates, there is tertiary education and then there is college education, Philippine style. Sure, the top universities here are world class, but most people graduate from small community colleges run for profit and not academic excellence. And if you aren’t 18-24, attractive, over 5’2” and with Bio-data and 2x2 photos, your job prospects are close to zero. I have only seen one job ad actually asking for someone over 35, and that was for a cook, 30-40. So why work hard if you are on a 6 month contract and then you have to look again? That way you are a casual and not entitled to the perks of permanent employment that lip service is paid to by employers other than big name companies and the few with a social conscience. There are labour laws here, it just so happens there are more ways around them.
The favourite, dare I say “stock” answer here is “out of stock”. This usually means the clerk hasn’t a clue what you are asking for or doesn’t know something they should know and they don’t want to be embarrassed by you pointing out their incompetence. If you ask for butter, you might be shown cheese, or told it is out of stock. If you want to do anything that is not in their immediate experience then it can’t be done. Banking is one example. They have ATM’s, but the withdrawal limit is so low because most people don’t need more than P4000 at a time, if they even have that much. Just because it is a bank does not mean it is online or can do the same transactions a branch of the bank two streets away can do. Not all branches have computers! Hey, if most of the police stations don’t even have telephones…….The few that were issued cell phones no longer have them. They were stolen or are the exclusive personal phone of the station chief…
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You can down the complete July 2005 newsletter for FREE from the Streetwise Philippines – Information and Travel Guides here:
Streetwise Philippines – Information and Travel Guides
Posted: Thursday 7th July 2005, 12:10 AM
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