Translated By: Benoi Nair

Image: Source 

Dubai, UAE:

Dr. Suhail Al Bastaki, Happiness & Marketing Director, Union Coop confirmed to ‘Al Bayan’ the importance of exercising control over the purchases made by families for their grocery and allocating limited budgets. Moreover, he appealed for the shoppers to avoid shopping daily due to the current pandemic situation in order to follow precautionary measures of physical distancing and avoid public places as much as possible. Daily shopping will eventually lead people to buy unnecessary goods and products and will lead to financial and commodity wastage.

Al Bastaki identified 5 essential tips to control the purchase process to remain within the allocated budget for the monthly expenditure for grocery, to raise the financial saving rates for families as most families spend large sums on their grocery purchases while keeping the budget of purchases open, which affects their future plans.

The first advice for the shopper is to always remember that he will buy what he does not need if he is shopping on an empty stomach, and the second tip is to start proper planning for the grocery budget by preparing a pre-purchase list, which should be arranged in each outlet from where you normally start shopping. Apt sequencing in the list will avoid back and forth walk within the outlet for the consumer, stressing that such arrangement of the needs must be according to the categories including Foodstuff, which will include fresh purchases, meat, dairy products and non-food items including cleaning materials, storage containers, box tissues and others.

The third advice is planning for what food will be prepared and if there are occasions and banquets, which will help in determining the food quantity and will help reduce food wastage. The fourth advice is to avoid shopping if you are in a bad mood or are exhausted, as a busy mind and weary body will try to complete the shopping process in a hurry, by buying unnecessary products or not focusing and not comparing the available options properly. If you are forced to shop after a tiring and exhausting day then preferably, go to a familiar shopping outlet, as this will save you the trouble for searching products thereby speeding up the shopping and saving efforts.

Al Bastaki urged shoppers to participate in the loyalty program of each retail outlet to benefit from earning points with every purchase and exchange them for an amount that can be used later, also they often provide discounts on products to their member customers, which doubles the savings and contributes to the availability of a surplus in the monthly purchase allocations.