Singaporeans and shopping

Shopping with a conscience
We should be more discerning about where our dollar goes
Li Xueying, Straits Times 25 Dec 08;

CHRISTMAS is here. I was doing some shopping in preparation. With the piped-in Jingle Bells carol ringing in my ears, I was generally filled with love and goodwill towards all mankind.

Until I decided to buy some bread.

It was nearing 10pm, the closing time for a popular bakery outlet. A last-minute customer dashed in to buy a couple of buns. As she walked out, a sales assistant walked in.

Dragging along a black trash bag, she carelessly tossed into it the remaining 40 or so buns on the shelves.

I watched, hoping against hope that the perfectly fine buns were going to be put to some use. Instead, the sales assistant stripped off her plastic gloves and dumped them into the trash bag as well. It was clear that the buns were destined for the bin.

Appalled by the sheer wastage of food, I told myself that that was the last bun I would buy from the outlet - at least until the squandering stops.

With each bun costing on average $1.40, about $56 worth of food was wasted that night. If every outlet in this particular chain did the same, that would be $1,344 a night or $40,000 a month of bread gone to waste.

The wastage is unnecessary, given that there are over 20 charitable organisations here willing to transport bread from bakery to welfare homes. Bakeries need do no more than simply pack the unsold bread in bags.

Food From The Heart, for instance, collects from 110 bakeries and hotels such as Ritz-Carlton Millenia, benefiting 5,800 individuals a day.

Even more admirable are small-time bakeries like Cakes ETC in Ghim Moh, whose proprietor, his wife and his son, take turns to deliver their leftover bread to welfare homes.

In times of recession, when we are tightening our belts, we should be even more discerning about where our dollar goes. And we should judge companies by how socially responsible they are.

In Singapore, we do not have as yet a strong tradition of conscientious - or ethical - consumption. When most of us (myself included) consider a purchase, we look at the item's price, its quality, its design. When it is a food product, we also consider whether it is 'safe' to consume - for the sake of our health.

But we rarely consider the conduct of the company that we buy from, whether its actions are 'safe' and 'good' for society as a whole or the environment, not just us.

As consumers, we do wield a certain influence on how companies act and, yes, we can improve the world in the process.

In the West, an example of such influence was the boycott of tuna in the early 1990s.

Some people refused to purchase canned tuna because dolphins were routinely killed in the process of catching the fish. Though canned tuna did not contain dolphin meat, the product was deemed tainted because of the way tuna was caught.

The end result of the boycott was that the tuna companies found a way to catch tuna without killing large numbers of dolphins. Once canned tuna did not seem tainted, consumers began purchasing it again with a 'clear conscience'.

Today, in the United States, there is a new wave of consumers who are 'becoming...civically motivated in their shopping and purchasing habits', trumpeted an article in Time magazine late last year.

According to a report by Future Laboratory, an international brand strategy and trend-forecasting consultancy, these consumers are 'becoming more judgmental, less forgiving, and more determined to use their power'.

In Singapore, there are some glimmers of a movement in a similar direction.

A new environment-friendly HDB estate in Punggol, with green attributes such as solar-powered corridor lighting, proved popular when it was launched in March last year.

Around the same time, some Raffles Girls' School students started an organisation to lobby fellow youth, their school, and parents to use so-called Fairtrade products.

It is a good start. But what more can be done to push ethics into the consciousness of consumers?

One possible way is to set up a website - hosted perhaps by a respected organisation such as the National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre - with listings of companies that are good corporate citizens.

Of course, the difficulty lies in defining what constitutes a good corporate citizen.

When is a company a good corporate citizen? What if it does good in some areas, but not others?

For instance, the bakery that I referred to at the start of this column has donated freshly-baked bread on an ad-hoc basis to charities. It has been a good corporate citizen in this respect.

It is up to the individual consumer to judge, weigh up a company's various actions and decide if it passes muster. It is also up to the customer to decide what causes he wishes to champion.

Some might feel strongly about the environment; others, about the elderly in homes. But the most important thing is to be aware and not let ignorance be an excuse.

As some social theorists have noted, conscientious consumption is one of the clearest and most basic ways for us to express our actual moral choices.

'Shopping is more important than voting,' some have argued. That is an exaggeration, but the sentiment does hold a truth: We do shop every day.

In Singapore, where shopping is the most popular leisure activity, we are perhaps better placed than most others to make a go of ethical shopping.

And when better to start than this festive season?

Big ticket items still popular this Christmas season
By Hetty Musfirah Abdul Khamid, Channel NewsAsia 24 Dec 08;

SINGAPORE: Economic woes aside, Singaporeans are still spending big on electronic items and toys as perfect gifts this Christmas.

With most companies still handing out year-end bonuses, Singaporeans are in high spirits to shop. But that does not mean they are less discerning.

"We compare different brands and check the reviews," one said. "I think it is a buyer's market now because the price has gone down considerably."

With those factors in mind, items that set consumers back by hundreds of dollars remain popular this festive season.

At Courts Megastore for example, lower-priced mini notebooks that can cost more than S$500 have topped this year's list of hot Christmas items.

Digital cameras come second, while full high-definition TV sets – mostly bought by families for themselves – are third.

Terry O'Connor, chief executive officer, Courts (Singapore), said: "You are talking about the 32-inch LCD, Japanese branded products from as low as S$599 or S$699. For a very affordable price, you can get big screen full-HDTVs below S$2,000 and sometimes, below S$1,500. It is a price-oriented market at the moment."

The same can also be said for toys.

Ng Peng Hwa, managing director, Lancashire Marketing, said: "Parents will still invest in their young ones by getting products that have good play value, that have enhanced features, that also give them value-for-money returns.

"In the first two weeks of December, we sold close to 500 dollhouse sets. And it is not just a dollhouse, it is the first interactive dollhouse in Singapore."

According to Mr Ng, demand from retail outlets has not dropped, despite the economic downturn. In fact, he is confident his company can sell up to 1,200 of the 2,000 sets that it brought in.


- CNA/so