Remember in the late 90s, there was this craze for $1 chicken rice? It started by an ingenious hawker who wanted to rise his business profile and started offering people offering discounted chicken rice at $1 while and the rest was selling at $2.50?
How did the $1 chicken rice survive? Apparently not for too long. In order not to compromise on profit, he has to sell twice as many rice to meet his sales target. When word got around, it did not take long for Singaporeans to pick up a bargain. Long queues are form and the hawker needed to hire more staff to cope with demand. this in fact lowered his profit and he has to shrink the portions to maintain the profit.
One of my first lessons in life as a "Cheep-po" was to actually join a queue and await for my bargain lunch. I was rather disappointed with the portions, it did not fill me up, the chicken tastes rather hard and the rice was not fragrant as the rest. I kind off regretted to waste time for awful food and this manta prove good later in life.
I would never go on asking for a bargain as I know, somewhere there will be a compromise. I would rather save another dollar to get a better quality chicken rice. 2 plates of a bad thing does not mean equal one plate of a good chicken rice.
How about the business? When you reverted selling to $2.50, many of us will only remember that the chicken rice is only worth $1 and the taste is not up to standard, of course the chicken rice business did not survive.
