When I saw the said post sometime ago on Nairaland, I just read through the comments and kept smiling. You remember that post about people never negotiating the price of goods at supermarkets and how unfair it is to deprive "the poor woman with 12 HUNGRY children" of feeding by haggling away her profits? That's the post I'm referring to now. When I woke up this morning to realize it has gone viral, I thought maybe I should set the explanation straight: that there's ABSOLUTELY NOTHING wrong or wicked about the given situation. And I do this simply for the sake of enlightening us.

The MAJOR reason why we will never argue about the price of a purchase in a supermarket compared with a tradeswoman/man's transaction is not because of packaging. It is mainly because these two enterprises operate different pricing mechanisms according to the business models they have set up for themselves.

While supermarkets like Shoprite operate the list price policy under a fixed pricing mechanism, the orange/banana seller categorizes herself under a negotiation pricing policy which rests under dynamic pricing.

How are these pricing mechanisms chosen or enforced? It's not by mere guessing or random picking but by the nature of the business model adopted by the enterprise. The kind of value being brought to the market will determine what kind of pricing to adopt. The cost involved in bringing the product to buyers will inform the kind of pricing mechanism to adopt. The brand value being promised to the buyer by the seller will determine the kind of pricing method to adopt. Even competitive advantage matters too.

If you can help the banana seller revisit her business model and work on it, you won't negotiate ever again. So the next time you want to pity a banana seller, remember you can only help them by educating them, not by overspending money. Teach them to fish instead of feeding them. You can't feed them forever. Educate them.

Let's look at it like this-

The supermarket has to charge higher prices because-
-rent/building costs (diesel for 24hr electricity, elevator repairs, rent etc)
-supplier costs (costs associated with getting goods (eg shoprite getting apples from south african farmers)
-luxury branding goodwill- (price goes with quality, Gucci doesn't sell cheap to maintain it's prestige)
-Industry standards and legal costs (Shoprite has to make sure its foodstuff are NAFDAC approved)



The local banana selling woman doesn't have the same responsibilities that the supermarket has. The woman's rent is smaller and she normally picks the fruits herself.




What the poster in that other silly thread doesn't realize that the supermarket has a returns policy and standards to meet. We the consumers are paying extra for the confidence in quality of the goods we are buying.