Buying a blender

My wife bought a multi function blender at a departmental store this afternoon. The blender is made in Japan. The usual price is $120 but today special promotion at only $69 with free filter.

The promoter was pretty good with the demo and was surrounded by a big group of housewives and some uncles like myself. She diligently tried out one method after another and she had about 10 different types of food items to do the demo.

I was convinced by the functionality of the machine so I asked my wife to get one. I feel that the price was cheap as I had seen it selling at more than $100 before. I thought many would follow suit and buy. To my surprise, out of the group of about 30 onlookers, only my wife bought it.

Interestingly, after my wife stepped aside to check the machine, 3 women came after her and asked her questions like: what is the price? is it really useful? is it really selling at bargain? does it really come with free gift etc?

I was thinking at one side. We were all there listening and witnessed the demo for 20 mins. Surely we heard and saw the same thing. Why these people want to get 2nd opinion? Maybe it has to do with the kiasu and kiasi mentality in general.

I recall my experience of recommending some shares to one of my ex colleagues. This lady in her 50s I suppose was quite loaded. I recommended some good companies like Midas and Raffles Education to her. At that time Midas was trading at below $0.30 and I myself bought more than 100 lots. No matter how hard I tried to convince her, she would not bite. She always had excuses such as China businesses are risky bla bla bla .. and I put that to her kiasi attitude.

More than 1 year gone by and Midas shot to $2 and Raffles Edu also had doubled in price. I met her on the street one day. She regretted not to heed my advice at that time or she would have made good money investing in Midas and Raffles Edu.

Recently I happened to talk to her on the phone. She asked me whether can buy Midas and Raffles Edu as both had corrected significantly prior to the recent market melt down as they were hit hard by untrue articles and rumuors.

So I tried to convince her to pick up some if she can afford to hold for medium term. She was sceptical and did not buy any at first. Last week she phoned me to say that she had finally picked up some Midas. However at that time, Midas had been hitting recent high, so much higher than the price I asked her to buy at around $1.23. She told me she did not want to regret again as she saw the price jumped from $1.20 to $1.45.

Go back to the blender story. I am sure some aunties will go back to check the price tomorrow to confirm whether it was really selling at 40% discount. And I am sure they would be kicking themselves and say "I should have bought it yesterday as it was so much cheaper"! Why cant people be more simple minded at times and take things at their face value. In Singapore, if you sell things too cheaply, people think it must be a junk.

It happens everywhere and everytime. Thats just human nature: Fear and Greed. As long as humans live, this will not die. Tomorrow market should trend downwards again and many people would panic and sell low again. Before they recovered from their shock, big boys would come and push up the prices and they would then start to chase again by paying even more for the shares as they do not want to miss the boat.

Now that Mr Chew has been accumulating Midas at the cheap, maybe its time we follow the big boys and see what it brings. Good luck!