Food as the Number One Priority

According to news reports, food remains the highest priority of Filipinos. Food has even surpassed the sales of clothing and electronic gadgets. On a tight budget, Filipinos would rather buy food than other things they do not see as essentials.

Groceries report higher sales than non-grocery formats. Naturally, since food is the number one priority, Filipinos would normally go to groceries to buy their weekly food needs. And since there are a lot of retail formats in the Philippines, Filipinos would sometimes buy from other formats such as hypermarkets, convenience stores, wet markets and even sari-sari stores.

Some of these retail formats are not even existing in other countries. Wet markets in South Korea are existing but people do not go here as in the Philippines. In the Philippines, wet markets open in the early morning from 4 am until 10 am. Then they close or the sellers close their shops. Some stores open again at 4 in the afternoon but the majority, including the big sellers, only open up at 3 in the morning. Then they close at 10 in the morning. They follow this format for seven days a week, or 365 days a year.