Change The Price Tag If You Want To Charge More!

Okay, by now which is more than a week since the GST implementation, most of us are feeling the pinch, some more than others. Like many, I do think thrice about whether I really need something before taking it to the cashier. So far, I haven’t spent on frivolous stuff. I did most of the buying in March so I don’t need anything urgently.

Since I was at Popular in Avenue K, I thought I’d check out the price of my favourite pens and there’s this pack of Paper Mate pens for RM2.55. I know Popular displayed a notice in the store stating that the final price is the one in their system so you can’t rely on the price tags. However, I thought that by now they’d have finalized the prices (after all this is already the 2nd week of GST implementation and how much time do they need?) and whatever prices there are on the products should be it. I thought I’d be paying RM2.55 plus 6% which would bring it to RM2.70 but nooooo, when I went to the cashier, the price displayed on the till was RM3.40 which meant the price tag should have shown RM3.20 if they were going to charge an additional 6% on it. Like that, how to purchase anything when you will only know the REAL price once you get to the cashier? What if I had several items? I’d only realize after I’ve inspected the bill in detail.

Hello, there’s a big difference between RM2.55 or even RM2.70 and RM3.40.The cashier nonchalantly said “price increase due to GST.” That’s right, blame everything on GST. So I told her I wasn’t purchasing. If I have to pay RM3.40, I might as well purchase it at Tesco which would be the same price and I’d get points too.

It’s not just bookstores that are increasing prices drastically using the GST excuse. My regular bakeries have also increase prices by 20-30% which I think is just ridiculous. No wonder a budget meal here has a RM15 threshold. There I was thinking that budget meant anything less than RM5 but fat hopes given the current situation where everyone and their mother seems to be taking advantage of the GST implementation at the expense of the poor consumer.