Cut throat

Once I was sourcing to buy a gift for someone and wanted to find a unique namecard holder.

Came across a cart stall in City Hall area selling namecard holders, pendants and other accessories with the option to customise the name on a metal plate for each item.

I saw a namecard holder similar to this one on the right picture, and asked if it was made of leather. The sales girl said "We won't be selling this price if it is leather". I thought it was a rather untactful way of saying it was PVC and a tad too bochap/rude. The price ranges from $19.90 to $49.90. And to add on the name on a small metal plate costs $10. The quality of the PVC was also not that refined. However, as I was in a hurry to get a gift, I chose the cheapest $19.90 one plus $10 for name customisation. Almost $30 for the (damn) PVC gift.

A few days later while I was grocery shopping in Mustafa, I chanced upon the same namecard holder I bought earlier. There were many of them all stacked up in the box and it costs only $4.50 each! I was pretty disgusted and disappointed. I wouldn't have minded spending $50 if it was made of leather and paid even a little bit more for name customisation, but the PVC one was totally not up to quality. Imagine how much the business-minded retailers profitted out of these and at such a low cost (probably the cost price is only about $3.00 or less).

Please, all retailers, if you would like to sell something at a cut-throat price, then please make sure it is really unique and of good quality, something extraordinary, something out of this world that your client would not find in a pasar malam stall.

As for my own name card holder, I found an ordinary metal one from Daiso at $2 each. And I even pasted my own customised silver metal nameplate (left picture) on my $2 namecard holder. And I think it looks real (damn) nicer than the $30 PVC one.