Dollar Store

In the past few months, the discount retail trend so popular in the US and Japan has taken root in India—the $1 store. Of course, it is fundamentally strange to think shopping for American ‘discounts’ in India when one of the most striking things about living here is how you can find so many things at a fraction of the cost that you would spend for the same in the US. But what makes this so ironic is that, in fact, things are not priced at $1 each, but 100 rupees, which is about $2.25! For this reason, while much of the items are the kinds of surplus things that you find in a dollar store in the US—cleaning agents, sugar laden cereals, off-brand canned goods—shoppers here in India end up paying over TWICE the amount for the same crap! Now there is a business plan with serious hubris.

When we were living in Japan, the 100 yen store was one of our favorite places to shop. With Japan being so expensive, 100 yen stores are very popular among consumers and it is easy to see why folks shop there—I mean, why pay 500 yen for a pen, when you can get the same one for 100 yen down the street? However, here the rationale is completely different. Here the question is flipped, “why would you pay 100 rupees for a can of baked beans when you can pay 10 for the Indian equivalent?” This I do not know the answer to, but from the large crowds that I have seen in the store, there are more than a few people who seem to have the answer. Anyway, as a social scientist with an interest in globalization and the problem of cheap food, the Indian $1 store puts a new, different twist on the issue. The fact that folks are willing to pay so much for these ‘fluff foods’ and other cheap, poor quality items (even by Indian standards), is fascinating. Kaia and I ended up buying a small bottle of Gatorade, which like all other items was 100 rupees—hardly a bargain in the States!

Why I Love this Time: Sekar the ‘mouse’.