the Scoot-Away

Day: 30th January, Thursday

Time: 4.15pm to 5.30pm
Venue: Punggol Sheng Siong

Context: Brian was doing some CNY shopping for his mother

Brian entered the supermarket with a list in his hands. It was given to him by his mother. His first stop was at the temporary shelf of Beer next to the entrance. He was comparing the prices between Tiger Beer and Heineken. Both going at $38.88, Tiger Beer was offered in a 24 can carton while Heineken in 3 packs of 6 cans. Brian chose Heineken. Beer was not on his shopping list.

 

Next, he entered the lane offering a wide variety of CNY goodies anda few options for house decorations. He had walked through this lane very slowly, mentally ticking off the shopping list item by item each time he had found it off the shelf. There was a total of 6 items on the list. Brian has bought 2 of each type of CNY goodies although there was no instruction to do so from his mother. At the end of the row, the decorations were display in a makeshift booth. Brian had folded his shopping list and lifted the 4 streamer options, 2 at a time, side by side. He stood there staring at each pair of decorationsand finally came to a conclusion after a few minutes. He added his selection into the trolley.

 

Brian took out his shopping list from his pocket. He was left with 4 items. Fresh chicken, fresh fish, drinks and plastic cups.

 

Brian headed for the drinks compartment. He seemed unsure of his directions around the supermarket and was glad that the plastic cups were conveniently placed next to the drinks row. His mother had not specified what kind of drinks were needed. So once again, Brian had folded his shopping list into his pocket and started browsing for potential products. He first reached out to “F&N Seasons Green Tea”. It was on promotion – 2 bottles for the price of 1 @ $2.10. He placed the bottles in the trolley. He then went on browsing and found “Heaven and Earth Green Tea” being sold for $1.00/bottle. He took out the F&N bottles and replaced them with 3 Heaven and Earth Green Tea.

 

He had stopped in front of 2 other items on promotion – one being a 6 in a packet lemon barley and the other – a bottle of Ribena syrup. He chose the Ribena. It went for $11.27. Before exiting the lane, Brian looked into trolley and decided to grab another bottle of drink. He went for F&N Seasons Lemon Tea, which was conveniently located on his left.Lastly, he had stopped by at the ‘wet market’ section of Sheng Siong. His mother had not given him instructions as to the type of fish or chicken to buy. He eye-balled the possible chickens on the icecounter and went for the heaviest one. As for the fish, he had requested for assistance from the Sheng Siong staff. Asking in Mandarin, he told the staff to pick out the freshest fish that looked the best from the range of Red Garoupas. The fish was then de-scaled and weighed. Its cost was $21.34. He then asked for a larger fish of equal amount freshness and had it weighed. Its cost was $42.39. He took the 2 fish and put them in the trolley, and then headed for the cashier.

 

Helping him with some of the groceries, we then headed back to his house. The observation ended there.