Monday, June 22, 2009

The almighty won: Part II

Seoul's version of capitalism is complex. While some call it a merchant culture because of the thousands of independent store owners crowded in the subways and markets, a few gargantuan companies seem to dominate the scene. Unlike in the U.S. (think GE). these companies keep their brand names throughout their assets. Lotte (pronounced Low-tay) is one of the biggest. There's Lotte department stores; grocery and household stores; a fast-food burger chain; orange juice, cookie, soda and many other food brands; a baseball team; apartment complexes; and a large amusement park.

Lotte World
is one of the largest amusement parks in the world. We haven't been there yet (it's on the southern edge of Seoul), but it looks to be a dead ringer for Disney World. Even the custodians of the park, Lotty and Lorry, dress like Mickey and Minnie Mouse. This is no coincidence. Disney and the Mouse family are extremely popular here. It's impossible to go a day in Seoul without seeing a woman in her 20s sporting a Mickey Mouse shirt.

The prices of items at places owned by Lotte are firm, just as in the U.S. But smaller stores are another story. One of the interesting things to watch here has been the degree of flexibility of prices at these mom and pop style stores.

Saturday we visited Techno Mart to buy a wireless router and an air cleaner. Techno Mart is an intimidating 8-floor mall with over 2,000 electronics shops. Instead of having separate rooms, these retailers mark out their territory with U-shaped shelves. It's not always clear where one shop starts and the other one ends. To me, it looked like Best Buy times 10. As in a lot of these malls where small retailers congregate, the salespeople were very aggressive. It was impossible to glance at anything without being leaped on.

The first merchant we met didn't have the air cleaner we wanted. But he had another which he said was just as good with the tag price of 350,000 won. It was too much for a filter we knew nothing about, and him enough.

"How about 270,000?" he says, dropping 20 percent from the original price.

We talked it over -- it did seem like a steal. Still, the one we saw online was just 220,000 won. So we decided to keep looking. As we walked away, he shouts "How about $250,000?" "We'll think about it," we shout back.

In the end we got a different air filter from a different retailer. He didn't give us much of a discount -- only 5,000 won -- but we felt this salesman was much more trustworthy than the first one. In fact, one of his customers told us as much while we were waiting for the air filter to be brought from the warehouse.

I think this is the lesson to be learned here. There are so many small merchants here that once you find a good one, you should stick to them. I found a housewares merchant a good 30-minute walk from our apartment that I'm planning on visiting again. He gave me a wok, cutting board, two mugs, fifteen plastic hangers, a medium-sized glass Tupperware container, three cleaning rags, a cooking spoon and spatula, and metal tea kettle all for 40,000 won ($32).

Our space-age air cleaner made in Japan.

2 comments:

  1. So how bad is the pollution there?

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  2. Pretty bad! There's a constant smell that we didn't really notice until we took a day trip to another, less-urban city. And it always looks grey and smoggy. The city is surrounded by mountains, so the pollution never really disperses.

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