Cost-conscious Consumer of Kempton writes:
In order to limit the movement of citizens during the Covid-19 lockdown, the SA Government has introduced – as have many other governments around the world – stringent rules regarding which businesses may operate during the lockdown (“essential”), and which may not (“non-essential”).
Different people have different ideas about what constitutes “essential”.
None of us know when life might begin to return to what we used to know as “normal”. What will the new “normal” look like, we wonder.
Obvious questions to ask are what happens if my fridge/freezer/washing machine/tumble drier/microwave/whatever breaks down during this lockdown?
We apparently are not at liberty to call out a technician or engineer to fix the problem and if the problem is not fixable, then stores which sell these sorts of electrical goods are deemed “non-essential” and are closed. So what does the consumer do then?
Just think of the money wasted – and if the wage-earners in the family have been furloughed, or laid off, and there’s little or no income to buy replacement food, what happens to those families? Similarly, with winter approaching, people are unlikely to be able to dry their washing outdoors.
A lot of people use bottled gas to heat their homes during the winter months (and/or use such gas for cooking purposes) – are suppliers of such allowed to home-deliver and connect up?
Another problem is, when we were able to “shop around”, you knew that you would buy Product A in Shop A, because it was cheaper there than in Shops B and C. This applies to all manner of goods – baby wipes and nappies, feminine hygiene products, soap power, washing-up liquid, swimming-pool consumables, to name just a few.
A cynic might say, well, you used to pay R16.99 in Shop A, but you can still get the same or similar in Shops B and C and it’s only R19.99, so what’s your problem?
The problem surely is, for some people, that R3 difference. Multiply those R2s, R3s, whatever, by the number of items, and a family might find itself having to spend perhaps R30 more – R30 it maybe doesn’t have.
This is not taking into account any price-hikes that shops may (try to) apply.
The questions about consumerism are almost endless, with few or no answers to many problems. A “lockdown” may (hopefully) solve one problem, but creates so many others.
