Bulk Buying Bunkum

[liuzhou]

 

Bulk buying of food is rare here in China, largely because, in general, people prefer shopping for fresh food on a daily basis. Canned and packaged foods are much less common than in the west. In fact canned foods are very rare. Supermarkets carry very little frozen foods - mostly dumplings.

 

Maybe this explains an odd phenomenon I’ve often encountered. Having successfully utilised some Belgian apple beer into moules marinières, I decided to get in a few bottles for future use – I like me some mussels.

 

The only store I’ve found stocking said beer is on the other side of the city so I order it for delivery. It turns up within the hour.

 

On the shopping app, the company’s ad lists:

 

1 bottle = ¥9.50

6 bottles = ¥73.50 (12.2 per bottle)

12 bottles = ¥139.50 (11.63 per bottle

24 bottles = ¥295.00 (12.30 per bottle)

 

The more you buy, the more expensive it gets! Not an uncommon feature of Chinese shopping. In one supermarket I used to frequent it was cheaper to take all the cans out of a six pack of beer and put them into your basket separately – one of the staff often came to help me! They were then scanned individually and saved me a fortune over the years. The staff member just shrugged when I questioned her. Not her job. I've seen the same with instant noodles and other goods.

 

I'm planning on buying one a day until I build up a collection!

 

Image from Meituan shopping app.

 

 

Edited Thursday at 09:23 AM by liuzhou (log)

[Tropicalsenior]

Here in Costa Rica they don't do much bulk buying. And I think the reason for that is they have no concept of planning ahead. Most people have lived a day-to-day existence just to survive and they haven't had the money to ever buy ahead.

People used to buy their food in the Central Markets which is are equivalent of the Chinese wet markets and they would stock up with vegetables from the weekly Farmers markets. Now with a growth of the big supermarkets, the younger people are now going there and the markets have become a place for tourists filled with souvenir shops.

As for pricing, a lot of that is set by the government. There's a minimum and a maximum that they can charge for products that are considered the very basic for existence. The idea of sales or bargains just didn't exist. For instance in the supermarket that I go to they often have the big yellow tags that will say two for a thousand colones when the regular price of the item is 500 Colones. One of the strangest that I have come across and I have not been able to figure out is that occasionally they will sell pineapples two for a thousand Colones or one for 1300 Colones. Go figure.

 

[AlaMoi]

veddy curious that 'bulk' costs more!

 

in USA it's the opposite.  as a two geezer appetite household, it's difficult to buy many things in a 'once&done' qty.

 

beef roast type cuts - all in the 3-4+ range.

chicken - whole chickens run 5-7 pounds....

chicken pieces - 4-6 thighs, 10+/- legs, 4 whole breasts, 2 lbs of breast tenders

on and on. . .

I have to buy and plan on freezing most any meats/animal proteins.

[liuzhou]

2 hours ago, AlaMoi said:

in USA it's the opposite.

 

In most of the world, it's the opposite.

[Kerry Beal]

2 hours ago, liuzhou said:

 

In most of the world, it's the opposite.

So much for cheaper by the dozen!