AN app to help compare prices is bogged down by incomplete lists and discrepancies in prices of common goods and food throughout the country. 

The “Price Catcher” app was created by the Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry during the Barisan Nasional administration in 2017 to help consumers deal with rising living costs.

Using the app, consumers could search for a list of shops offering the most affordable food, cleaning products, nappies and baby formula.

A test run by The Malaysian Insight in three stores on Tuesday and yesterday in the Klang Valley showed the app’s pros and cons when it came to searching for the best bargains.

Among its best traits are that it has the biggest and most popular supermarkets and hypermarket chains in the country, such as Giant, Tesco, Econsave and Aeon Big.

The app also covers all districts in the peninsula, Sabah and Sarawak from Tumpat to Kuala Penyu to Kapit.  

The Malaysian Insight’s survey also found that most of the prices for a small basket of items in the stores matched those in the app, except for two instances.    

On the flip side, not all stores have uploaded their prices for the more than 400 items in the app and prices for the remotest parts of Sabah and Sarawak are unavailable.  

Many shoppers and staff at the stores also admitted not knowing about the app.

“It looks useful, I’ll try it out,” said Sabariah Azman after using the app to scan for the prices of fresh, “standard cut” chicken in the Petaling district of Selangor.

The 30-year-old downloaded the app after being interviewed by The Malaysian Insight outside the Mydin hypermarket in USJ, Subang Jaya.

Smarter consumers

The app is part of the ministry’s 1Pengguna programme and aimed at creating a smarter consumer who shops responsibly and thriftily, according to its description.

It is available on Google Play (for android phones) and Apple App store (for iPhones).

For now, it has a list of 446 common food and household items separated into six main categories: fresh food, sundry supplies (dry spices and herbs), canned and packaged food, baby products, cleaning solutions (soaps and detergent) and drinks.

These main categories are split into sub-categories, such as chicken, beef, fruits, vegetables, seafood, eggs and fresh noodles.   

The stores include not only hypermarkets but also local wet markets and smaller supermarkets available in a certain state.

In the survey, The Malaysian Insight compared prices in the app with that of three shops – Mydin Hypermarket in USJ, Subang Jaya; Tesco Bukit Tinggi in Klang; and Giant Kota Kemuning in Shah Alam.

The prices were for a basket of about five similar and different goods in each store and the choice of items revealed one of the app’s main shortcomings.  

Shortcomings

The app was unable to display the same list of goods across all the stores despite the fact that they all stocked these items. This made it hard to compare prices of the same item across different stores in a certain neighbourhood and district.  

The items surveyed in all three stores were:

* Tesco: Helang blended cooking oil (5kg), standard cut chicken (per kg), Grade C eggs (30), King Cup canned sardines (425g) and Fab Perfect laundry detergent (720g).

* Giant: Mabong or short mackerel (per kg), Grade B eggs (30), tomatoes (per kg), imported Beijing cabbage (per kg) and chicken breast (per kg).

* Mydin: Standard cut chicken (per kg), selar kuning or yellow-tailed scads (per kg), Cap Ayam canned sardines (425g) and Kipas Udang sweet soya sauce (345ml).  

The app displayed prices for standard cut chicken in all three stores but could not display prices for Grade C eggs (30 pieces) at the Giant in Kota Kemuning.

Price Catcher showed the prices for King Cup sardines, Fab Perfect detergent and Helang cooking oil at the Tesco and Mydin outlets but not Giant.

All prices for the items in the Giant and Mydin stores tallied with Price Catcher.

However, two of the items at Tesco Bukit Tinggi did not gel with prices in app.

A check yesterday on the app showed that Helang cooking oil was priced at RM20.88 but at the store, it was RM26.99. Grade C eggs (30) were priced at RM12.84 at the store and listed at RM12.24 on the app.

Blame it on SST

Shoppers met at these stores said while they did not know about the app, their own monthly budget did not appear to change although it has been eight months since the goods and services tax (GST) was scrapped.

The unpopular consumption tax introduced by BN has been blamed for raising inflation. The Pakatan Harapan government replaced GST with the sales and services tax (SST), which is levied on fewer goods and services.

“I haven’t saved much from month to month, only about RM10 per month after the GST was abolished,” said Klang resident Shaharuddin Mohamad, 52.

“My real savings were during the tax holiday, that time I saved up almost RM60 per month,” said the father of four school-going children.

Factory worker Yassir Jasnam said shopkeepers told him and his wife that the reason prices are still high is because of the SST.

“My wife and I would always speak up whenever we feel a certain item is expensive and they now tell us it’s SST, even though we know it doesn’t get charged on everything,” said the 25-year-old from Subang Jaya.  

“In the past, shops used GST as an excuse, now they’re using SST as a reason.” – February 14, 2019.