fbpx

Top 5 Crazy Filipino Gadget Buying Habits

With the many years of experience buying gadgets and also selling gadgets, we’ve encountered a lot of Filipino behavior that can be really irritating or frustrating at times. We list down the top 5 gadget buying habits of fellow Pinoys and tell us if this is true.

Let’s face it, we’ve done some of our own share of gadget shopping at one time or another.

Yugatech 728x90 Reno7 Series

1) Search Online, Buy Offline. When we are planning to get the next gadget or cellphone, we hit the internet and search our favorite online shop or check the listings in TPC, eBay, Ayos Dito and Sulit.

ecommerce-philippines

However, once we find the right seller, we still prefer either a meet-up or go ask them where their physical store is so you can personally make the visit and get it yourself. It could be that we really want to get it immediately that we can’t wait or we just don’t trust to make the payment first before having the product shipped to us. It’s possible customers have very little trust with couriers or find them in-efficient.

The truth of the matter is, in e-commerce, most customers use the internet for research but prefer the commerce part to be done face to face.

2) Loyalty to the Lowest Bidder. Admit it, our buying habits will often be dictated by the lowest bidder. Filipinos will jump from one store to another and their loyalty will shift from one seller to another depending on who is the lowest bidder.

kimstore

That is the reason why the gray market has flourished in the country for so many years. When people want to buy a Sony smartphone, they don’t go to the Sony Concept Store in the malls, they go online and look for the lowest price being offered by online sellers — regardless of the fact if they don’t know the seller, they do not offer a manufacturer’s warranty (only service warranty) or they won’t issue an official receipt.

The savings is all worth the risk.

3) The Protector or Nurturing Nature. Just bought a spanking new smartphone? Go buy a screen protector; even if the display is made up of scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass 3. A naked phone is a sacrilege — go buy a gel case, a flip case and an armor case just in case you go on a trip.

screen-protector

This protective or nurturing behavior has created a very huge and lucrative secondary market for cases and accessories. (Trivia: Smartphone distributors/dealers make much better margins in cases and accessories than they do from the phones.)

4) Last Price Mentality. Filipinos are great hagglers and they are very proud of it. Some people think it’s an art. Others think it’s psychology. We think we’re giving the sellers a favor when buying from them so they better give a discount or freebie in return.

Sellers get annoyed or frustrated when they say “fixed price” and the potential buyer still asks “last price?”

5) We’re more Traders than Buyers. Not contented with #4, still quite a number of Filipinos think it’s the 19th century and believe buying is synonymous to trading.

trading

We’d normally see this conversation in the threads:

Seller: Selling a brand new iPhone 5 64GB! Only Php20k, Globe lock. Inside the box. Last price.

Buyer 1: Puede swap sa Samsung Galaxy S5, second hand, minor scratches?

Seller: Cash only po. Thank you!

Buyer 2: Swap with LG G2, plus cash!

Oh, the frustration. Either people don’t know what cash means or they think they can get away with swapping.

And the list does not end there.

With about a decade of experience in online commerce in the Philippines and the numerous discussions we’ve had with a lot of online sellers and buyers, these observations are top of mind. We dare call them crazy; probably not. Maybe just a bit odd or funny.

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 976 other subscribers
Avatar for Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

50 Responses

  1. Avatar for V V says:

    my favorite.

    buyer: how much ?
    seller: pm….

  2. Avatar for Sherwin Go Sherwin Go says:

    Sakin pinaka annoying yung last price na yan. Sometimes I put on my ad that asking is last price take it or leave it pero may nagtatanong pa rin.

    But I admit I still prefer buying on a physical store than online as much as possible…

  3. Avatar for jess jess says:

    Too many nuissance on buyers wisecrack last price query as there are sellers of over used but still at 60-70% price value, i sell my stuff no longer than 1-wk coz i price it at how common sense dictate, for a smartphone used for a yr, it shoud be priced at 50% or less, coz ur done with it and ready to upgrade.

  4. Avatar for Mirror Mirror says:

    I’m not much of a casing freak guy but I always put all my gadgets screen protector. I read somewhere that there is a maximum degree where “scratch-free” feature can withstand. So I always prefered to have it coated. In terms of back cover, I don’t often install one since the phone will become heavy and bulky. So I’m willing to trade back scratches with vanity.

  5. Avatar for Rubbahband Rubbahband says:

    why is #3 considered as crazy? even my Gorilla Glass 2 screen is susceptible to scratches(I noticed it after several months of having no screen protector on my SGS2). in fact most of the smartphone users do this, not just Filipinos, except if you’re very rich that you do not even care if your smartphone’s screen has some minor or deep scratches.

  6. Avatar for Ben Ben says:

    I get irritate with pople of #4 and #5. Been selling online, and I get those A LOT, even I clearly indicate my price.

  7. Avatar for JohnQuill JohnQuill says:

    Buying protectors is a waste of money. Your phone will be have little or no resale value in a year. And it’s not like you can use the same protector on your next phone.

    • Avatar for aRei aRei says:

      Not everybody buys a new gadget annually or are as careful as you. Maybe you can say that to those who buy extended warranties but not to people who buys protection for their gadgets against the elements and against the user’s clumsiness. :P

  8. Avatar for Evo Garcia Evo Garcia says:

    Daming alam ng blogger. Maligo lang hindi.

  9. Avatar for aRei aRei says:

    Here’s why I buy a screen protector, because I dont live in a printing and quarantined World:

    http://lifehacker.com/5937324/your-keys-arent-scratching-your-smartphone-its-the-sand-in-your-pocket

Leave a Reply
JOIN OUR TELEGRAM DISCUSSION

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *