Matt's Shanghai

E-Mart!!!

So today included an adventure to E-mart… a kind of Wal-mart ripoff in Shanghai. I went a little wild today with my purchases, spending 288 元 (around US$35). Some of you might wonder how I went wild with just $35.

Here’s the list of everything I purchased during the first E-mart visit:
• A pair of Scissors (5.20元/65¢)
• A stapler (12元/$1.50)
• 500 staples (2.10元/25¢)
• Two ballpoint pens (3.90元/45¢)
• One fountain pen (9.90元/$1.20)
• Whiteout tape (3.90元/48¢)
• Pushpins (1.20元/ 14¢)
• Three picture frames (total 18.9元/$2.33)
• Power strip (12.80元/$1.55)
• Notebook (5.50元/ 65¢)
• Optical mouse (55元/$6.75)
• Two huge bottles hand soap… … over a liter (15.80元/$1.95)
• Three Bars of Soap (10.50元/$1.30)
• Shampoo (33.50元/$4.10)
• Shaving cream (24.00元/$2.95)
• Box of Kleenex (5.80元/ 70¢
• Six smaller packages of Kleenex (3.90/ 45¢)
• Iron (60元/$7.40)

Overall, I was pleased with my purchases, besides having to walk about a mile with all of this stuff to get back home to my apartment. It’s odd… the most expensive everyday toiletry items are super expensive. Soap is reasonable, but shampoo is extremely expensive compared to the normal price of goods in China. For the cost of one bottle of shampoo, you are halfway towards the purchase of a medium priced iron. I mean, for about 100元 you can buy a water cooler and boiler that uses one of the large 5 gallon water containers that a lot of stores have… and it costs a third of that to buy a small bottle of shampoo???

Couldn’t find an alarm clock or undershirts, but I guess I’ll go back soon and look harder. I did see nice dress shirts for about 20元/$2.45 and new dress shoes for about 30元/$3.70. I know where I’ll be shopping for clothes soon.

posted by Matt Dull @ 4:01 PM