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Conservative by cents, spendthrift by Dollars

Indian consumers have a nasty habit of throwing us off balance once too often. No wonder it is a country of paradoxes. Here is an instance that is fresh in my mind from a first hand experience sometime ago.

Lady of the house ordered on the mobile phone a range of exotic foods like celery, broccolli et al and not even once batted an eyelid on the prices or the total bill amount. Just then the door bell rand and there was this newspaper canvasser trying to push that extra newspaper at home. A major discussion followed as to why this extra expenditure (all of less than vegetable bill and that too for the full year supply of the newspaper) that is wasteful. But then boy knew a few tricks of the trade and clinched the deal with a masterstroke :

"You will recover more than expenditure by selling the Raddi of the newspapers over the year".

Bravo Indian consumer. Keep on surprising us marketers and throw us off balance.

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