I am not sure whether I am "katak bawah tempurung" or .... I visited Justlife Organic Store at The Gardens yesterday to purchase some organic food basket as a "get-well-gift" for a business associate.
Personally, I cant afford organic food on a daily basis so I hardly patronise these outlets but yesterday, I had a jolly good time browsing and educating myself with all the organic food.
I decided on quite a number of items and the total sum payable was quite a hefty amount. So, feeling good, I paid for the good via my credit card and was waiting for the lady at the check-out counter to bundle them into a bag but she instead told me ... sorry ma'am, our company do not promote use of bags ... would you like to purchase our recycled hand carry cloth bags at RM9.90 each? I said ... waaaat????
I got totally pissed off just that moment! She quickly asked me if I would then prefer to place all the goods into a box instead ... ya, ok, I understand & respect your company's policy about all those environmentally friendly issues BUT hey - how is your customer going to carry all those goods in a box? And I bought quite a number of bottles of honey, fruit juices, olive oil, etc ... so how to carry the box which will be darn heavy - with no handles???? And mind you, the car park or even a walk to the taxi stand will take you 15 mins okay!
Then I decided to call another guy (could be the supervisor) and asked him his suggestion on how I should solve this problem. I told him, if I knew about this "no bag" policy (read: its a "no bag" and not "no plastic bag" policy!) I would have not purchased anything there cos I still had more shopping to do. He then suggested he tie a string round the box so that it can at least act as a handle - which I agreed and thanked him. But this s#&*%@*& lady, just stare at me and did nothing!
Before leaving, I suggested to the guy who helped me with the box, that perhaps he should bring such feedback/situations to his management and for them to come up with a good solution for shoppers to prefer to carry their stuff in a bag.
Cos after all, this is Malaysia and if you dont provide a bag, some other store will - so sorry lah, dont think I will ever shop there again especially if I intend to do large purchases. Moreover, organic food is darn expensive ...so cant they at least provide free "cloth bags" or whatever you call them?
Maybe I am indeed very "kampung" ....
13 comments:
haha well now is a trend of environmental friendly mah. All my friends are crazy of the cute design of Envirosax bags & Rume Environmental bags. It can be folded to a handphone size. In fact, Justlife should put a note at they door side. :)
Ya, in Singapore, there is no plastic bag on very Wednesday. You have a choice of bringing your own recycle bag or buy the plastic bag. (small SGD0.05, bigger SGD0.10)
Jo, 5 or 10 cents is ok lah but 9.90 wor ... siao lang meh!
oh man..i didn't know they have this policy too. they should put up a sign to inform the customers and not let the cashier tell them only after everything is paid for. And...Rm9 for a bag..they are insane!!! Some companies are giving these bags for free!
Hi, here too lots of supermarkets have those 'no bags' policy, but? You can get their plastic bag for an extra 5 cents, yes...5 cents, or there are discarded boxes nearby for customers to use.
We keep spare paper bags as well a cloth bag in my car.....
Re these organic health foods, they are good but can make holes in the wallet.
My wife is 62, still with stunning good looks and a figure to match, ahemmm.
She can still get into the sarong kebaya she wore on our first date 3 decades ago, as well the blue cheong sum she wore that night I asked her to be my life partner....she brought them here...and once a year will try them out.
She (and me) we don't take any anything except 'Bee Pollen" past 30 plus years..thats all we need for our good health.
Bee pollen slows down aging....check it out on the net.
Lots of Hollywood actresses take it, one tablet a day.
As well my wife is still working as retirement here is 65, and every weekend or her off day will take an afternoon nap of an hour.
Good sleep as well afternoon naps keep wrinkles away....
Bee pollen with Royal jelly is very good. It costs $4.90.00 for a bottle of 30 tablets. (About Rgt 13.00 I think).
You keep well and have a nice day, Lee.
going green is a good thing but the way they do business is not really friendly. you have a right to walk away because, after all you don't have a bag to carry..
if they don't encourage plastic, at least sell those green bags that cost a mere $1 or $2 one will do. this way is better than forcing to buy a bag at that $9.90 tho its RM is still too much.
in Singapore we promote bring your own bags on wed but if you forget, they still will be nice to ask you to pay a little sum or donate to the green life fund in a can. but nowadays i always put about 3-4 green bags in the car just in case or fold one in my handbag.
wei wei, can hop over to claim your tag arrhh!! thanks ya :P
its true..now is the trend to bring our own bag..
however for those who forget to bring the bag or dont know, they should have some plastic bag on standby.....
understand yr feeling. btw Justlife stuff are expensive to me... if u want organic, u can try cheaper places..
Jo
Australian supermarkets are moving towards no plastic bags policy. If you buy 3 items or less, you will not be given a bag. Also, we have 'green' bags that one can purchase for $1 to do your shopping. When it first came out a few years ago, we used to forget to take the bags shopping. Now it is second nature and we never leave home without our green bags.
Do you have biodegradeable plastic bags in Malaysia? We do here and imagine my surprise one day when I opened my cupboard and found disintegrated plastic all over the cupboard!
BTW, Please collect your award from my blog.
Over here they are trying to ask all of us to bring our own bags but they still provide you will plastic bags if needed. Ikea here is charging 0.50cts for each plastic bag used.
me too experienced the same thing at Justlife.. lucky nothing much i bought there but how could they ask us to carry the vege + fruits walking around w/out a plastic bag. i was d 1st time customer n duno bout this green policy as well.
no choice i took d plastic bag of my cloth that bought earlier. rather carry a cloth than a vege walking around rite.. haha
I actually think it's great that Justlife is going for the ' no plastic bag ' approach - we try to do the same thing at Tiny Tapir (except of course our shop is in a bungalow, so no problem with moving stuff to the car). I agree that they should put a big sign before you buy anything though, and not spring it on you after you've already purchased.
If only more stores in Malaysia (well, all over the world really) did that, it would be so much better for the environment and the world we are creating for ourselves in a couple of decades or leaving behind for our children.
As I know, the RM9.90 bag is a 'loan a bag' system in justlife. Which mean you can return the bag in any condition and get your money back. Which I think is a great solution to the customer.
Let's see what other ppl said:
http://nileeysphere.blogspot.com/2010/04/is-earth-day-really-effective-here.html
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