Remember what I said about Brunei: the only “souvenirs” worth buying are the DVDs of dubious origins. Well…I’ve just discovered another aspect of Brunei to make me feel better about staying in this bore hole. Drum roll…. The facial products here are dirt cheap – especially for Body Shop! The Tea Tree Oil moisturizer I use costs a whopping $10+ cheaper here, and the same more or less applies to the facial wash and toner as well. This is pricing discrimination brought to life from the economics textbooks. Nevertheless, the cynic in me suspects that the products must be somewhat inferior. For all I know, the origins of the Body Shop products may be similar to that of the DVDs, and that just spooks me. It’s one thing to have moving silhouettes and pixellated images in a movie, but another to have an avalanche of pimples sweeping my face. (Yes, I know, I’m darn vain.)

That’s the dilemma facing firms these days. Price your goods too low and people doubt their quality; price them too high and it exceeds their budgets. (Ok I think the books, “The Truth About Markets”, is getting to my head already.)

This conundrum is a result of a human idiosyncrasy: we can’t accept things which are too good to be true even if they are laid right in front of our eyes. It’s probably because we’re wired to think that all good things happen only in heaven, and that earth is just too darn shitty ( well, I guess that’s true considering the massive numbers of shit-producing organisms we have on this planet) to have any nice things. So whenever we’re confronted with anything or anyone remotely nice, doubts inevitably surface. We’d start to think that the nice something comes with inconspicuous fine print or that the nice someone has hidden agendas. It’s a cynic’s world out there – but only because we humans believe it to be that way.

We’ve gotta stop being so cynical!

Perhaps, I can start by replenishing my supply of Body Shop facial products here.