Nizy's
Dumpster
Fire!
Nizy's
Dumpster
Fire!
Published on February 9th, 2025
People always tell you to shop local, and they're usually right. Supporting your local economy is good, however...
Sometimes it doesn't make sense, financially speaking.
Today I wanted to talk about something that happens a lot here in Argentina (at least in Buenos Aires, where I live) that may or may not happen elsewhere, so YMMV. Also, It's not a general rule at all. There are lots of honest shopkeepers out there! (but the ones I'm going to talk about aren't lmao)
So. Yesterday it was hot as hell in the Atlantic Coast (33°C or 91.4°F), so my dad and I decided to go buy a fan (because the fans we had in the house already barely blew any air at all). Initially we planned on going to one of the big supermarket chains so that we could do all our shopping in one go. However, when we got there, there was a 20 min wait to enter the parking lot, so we ended up going to one of the smaller markets in the town's center. Since this smaller market didn't have everything we needed, we had to visit several different shops in the area. Mom 'n' Pop, brick-and-mortar shops, all of them. And, once again, I was able to confirm the pattern I am going to describe next.
To give a little bit of context, we come to Mar de Ajó twice a year, every year. And every year we notice the same pattern. Many local shops massively overcharge for the items they sell.
As I was saying, we wanted to buy a fan but couldn't go to the supermarket because of the lengthy wait times, so we went to a local shop. When we arrived, they only had two fans on display, and the rest were either boxed up or behind the glass. So, realistically, we only had two options because we wanted to make sure the fan blew an adequate amount of air, and those were the only ones that we could test. There was a tall one and a short one. The tall one looked nice and the airflow was fairly good. The short one was kind of rudimentary-looking, but had the strength of a jet turbine when taking off. Of course, we wanted the short one. We went to the counter to ask for the prices of the two fans. The tall one was 77k (ARS, of course), and the short one was like 66k. It was absolutely a no-brainer. However, when we asked to purchase the short one, the employee looked in the storage room and told us that the only one they had left was the one on display, but they weren't willing to give us a discount (which made the transaction kind of a big no-no because who knows what kind of wear and tear has resulted from being on display 24/7), so we were forced to take the more expensive, yet inferior, one. Great. We were kind of pressed for time since it was getting dark outside and we had to return home (Buenos Aires has really bad insecurity issues, and we don't want to die lol), so we bought the fan anyway, without checking the price online first. The price difference ended up not being that big, 77k in store vs 73k online (a ~5% difference).
This one store wasn't that bad, but some of the stores in the town center were. For example, I had to buy an RCA cable, a mini USB cable, and an universal plug adapter. I ended up spending ~6k on the USB and the HDMI cables, and ended up not buying the adapter. Why? Because it costed 5-freaking-k. An adapter that, online, costs at most 600. Absolutely wild. The cables I bought weren't cheap, either. Online, generic RCA cables (inentical to the ones I bought) cost 1500, and the Mini-USB cable costs around 3k. That means I paid about 28% more than I should have. However, if I had bought the plug adapter, I would've spent almost 160% more. Absolutely wild.
I still have 34 more days left, so I will continue to update this entry as I come across more examples.
Remember, this is NOT a dig at local, mom 'n' pop, brick-and-mortar shops. Please buy local whenever you can. All I'm trying to say is pay attention, because there are always a few unscrupulous merchants waiting to prey on the unaware.
Thanks for reading!
Feb 10th update: I did not go out today, as it was 35°C/95°F outside. Massive yikes!
I have no idea what to put here, probably badges? Music? A chatroom (my god, remember Xat and Chatango??)? I have to put something on here...
One thing I've noticed about Neocities is that people here apparently like FFXIV, sooooooooooooooooooooooo here's a pic of my character lmaooo
Male Au Ra face 4 FTW!!!1!!!11one