While Aco was en route to Tokyo for a conference, Alfie and I moved to my parents’ house until he is back next Wednesday. Coincidently, my sister also stayed over for the night and she asked me to drive her to Carrefour to buy a formula for her daughter.
The business nature of retail industry is of small margin and high volume. Due to tight competition, each retail races to increase their sales. A lot of marketing strategies have been taken, to name some: 20% discount for purchase with a certain credit card, buy-one-get-one-free, and the most frequent one: products promotion. This offers particular products at lowered price for a certain period of time -usually 2 or 3 days. The objective is to invite consumers to the store with the expectation that the customer will not go to the store just to buy the advertised product(s). Hopefully (and most of the time) they also buy other stuffs. This strategy is expected to boost their sales and of course their revenue.
If you notice, in Kompas Friday edition there are always one-full-page advertisements by either Carrefour or Hypermart or Giant - the top three hypermarkets. This week, Carrefour offered a 35,000rp discount for a tin of 900gr Pediasure (that's a milk formula for babies). Since there had been many complaints over the availability of the product, it is stated on the ad that one customer can only buy 2 tins. Since my sister wanted to stock up, she asked my other sister to come along.
So, this morning the three of us went to Carrefour quite early to anticipate the crowd and long queue at the cashier. We had this strategy that each of us had to take 2 tins and ring them at different cashier. This worked well. Around 20 minutes we each had a bag with 2 tins of Pediasure :). Mission accomplished. However, looking at the pile of Pediasure over the shelf, my sister couldn't resist the temptation to buy even more. She made a quick count: "Vanessa finished 1 tin a week. Six tins will only last for 1.5month. Let's do another round!"
So yes, we did it again. This time it took longer, but we ended up with 12 tins and saved 420,000rp. We didn't even need to buy other stuff, as Carrefour wished.
I love competition!
Monday, January 29, 2007
Saturday, January 27, 2007
How to cheat the time in Jakarta+, 1
That's it. I'm a high degree risk averse person. Not only that, my discount rate is so damn high. Put it another way: I'm paranoid yet impatience.
We live in this small but pleasant house in Karawaci, Tangerang (remember the no-kissing-on-the-street zone? Yes this is that). Geographically, it is close enough to the Cengkareng airport. But boy, I'm no lucky, when it comes to going to the airport, it is, well, far.
I've got two, no three options, basically. One, enter the airport through a backdoor -- this is almost literal, since that means you can enter only if you are authorized or you have that stupid sticker on your windshield. That 'backdoor' is my term for an entrance to the airport supposedly for officials only (or anybody who happens to have sticker, legal or illegally). Many times, I was successful with this entrance, even without a sticker or anything (it's not like I'm a cheap bastard -- well I'm, a little -- but hey I don't fly every day? But being me who preaches the there-is-no-free-lunch at schools, I always promised myself that I should buy that sticker -- never really got time to, though). Here's what I do instead: just wear a suit with formal tie and tell them guards you are in a hurry to catch your flight...
Second, ...
Oops, we have to board.. Sorry, catch you later..
We live in this small but pleasant house in Karawaci, Tangerang (remember the no-kissing-on-the-street zone? Yes this is that). Geographically, it is close enough to the Cengkareng airport. But boy, I'm no lucky, when it comes to going to the airport, it is, well, far.
I've got two, no three options, basically. One, enter the airport through a backdoor -- this is almost literal, since that means you can enter only if you are authorized or you have that stupid sticker on your windshield. That 'backdoor' is my term for an entrance to the airport supposedly for officials only (or anybody who happens to have sticker, legal or illegally). Many times, I was successful with this entrance, even without a sticker or anything (it's not like I'm a cheap bastard -- well I'm, a little -- but hey I don't fly every day? But being me who preaches the there-is-no-free-lunch at schools, I always promised myself that I should buy that sticker -- never really got time to, though). Here's what I do instead: just wear a suit with formal tie and tell them guards you are in a hurry to catch your flight...
Second, ...
Oops, we have to board.. Sorry, catch you later..
Thursday, January 25, 2007
hard to say I am sorry
I'm always confused how some people use the word “maaf” ('sorry').
One morning when approaching toll gate, my driver asked for toll money. I gave him the money. While he was taking it from me, he said “Maaf”.
On another occasion, on our way to office, the driver suddenly hit the car break, shocking us in the back. Apparently he was trying to avoid a big hole on the road. We, sitting on the rear seats immediately shouted “What's going on?” And he very calmly replied “Ada lubang, Bu” ('There was a hole, Mam'). No, there was no 'sorry', nothing.
Apparently, what ‘sorry’ means to us, is different with what it means to others. I guess sometimes it can mean 'thanks', yes?
And this one is hillarious. Yesterday, the rain was really heavy. As you know, in Jakarta that means traffic jam. Stucked in a street for 20 minutes, our driver took the initiative to make a detour. We agreed, as there seemed no better solution. We did not expect that he actually did not know well the route he took. After two hours of driving nowhere, we were back to where we started. I hopelessly complained: “I thought you knew the route!” And he softly grumbled: “Just now, I took the wrong turn.” No, there was no ‘sorry’ at all... By the time we reached the toll gate, I gave the money. He took it and said, "Maaf"...
Maybe I just don't know the exact meaning of 'maaf'...
One morning when approaching toll gate, my driver asked for toll money. I gave him the money. While he was taking it from me, he said “Maaf”.
On another occasion, on our way to office, the driver suddenly hit the car break, shocking us in the back. Apparently he was trying to avoid a big hole on the road. We, sitting on the rear seats immediately shouted “What's going on?” And he very calmly replied “Ada lubang, Bu” ('There was a hole, Mam'). No, there was no 'sorry', nothing.
Apparently, what ‘sorry’ means to us, is different with what it means to others. I guess sometimes it can mean 'thanks', yes?
And this one is hillarious. Yesterday, the rain was really heavy. As you know, in Jakarta that means traffic jam. Stucked in a street for 20 minutes, our driver took the initiative to make a detour. We agreed, as there seemed no better solution. We did not expect that he actually did not know well the route he took. After two hours of driving nowhere, we were back to where we started. I hopelessly complained: “I thought you knew the route!” And he softly grumbled: “Just now, I took the wrong turn.” No, there was no ‘sorry’ at all... By the time we reached the toll gate, I gave the money. He took it and said, "Maaf"...
Maybe I just don't know the exact meaning of 'maaf'...
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