Ok, all of us had indefinitely, in any other way know about the 2% increase in the GST to 7% and the spade of mad rushes over the last great Singapore Sale to beat it. We can all see this coming, especially in the typical kiasu Singaporean perspective – it’s like as if they cannot shop anymore when the GST reaches 7%, haha the laughable mentality.
Also, the recent talk about the NETS hike did sparked alot of comments here and there, especially in the papers and forums, given the stated example of the shoe shop in the Straits Times. And man… did that shop did receive alot of flak of not absorbing the NETs fee into their profits and passing it onto the customer.
However, given the GST and NETS hike, ultimately the sellers are the one who suffer as with the given cost of their good constant, their costs incurred per sale are already increased – with no significant benefit besides a corresponding increase in their sale prices. While most merchants would just simply hide the new charges into their bill, I personally find the shoe shop merchant practicing a really good display of transparency in explicitly stating the NETs hike in the bill. After all, they won’t be making any additional revenue for doing that either, but have the customer at heart in stating the reason for the increase in prices.
But why would NETs demand the shops incur their costs? Guess NETS had outgrown it’s initial intention of a cashless substitute and moving towards the practices of credit card companies (aka big boys club) where higher profit margins are obviously more evident. In this times of advancement, I wonder do companies nowadays are blinded by profit maximization and ignoring their sole reason for their existence and purpose to the community.
Lastly, on a community limelight – the Dengee Awareness in Singapore is very aggressive lately here – too effective I guess to the extent of annoy-ism, from TV, busstop ads, banners, posters and especially those irritating and repetitive ads on the radio, at least the mute button is always not too far off. It’s not as if we already know and practice all these things.
