Levels of consumption Philippine Style

We consume every single day, its what we do as human beings. In the world of consumerism, i think buying things has been taken to a whole new level.

The Philippines is an archipelago in South East Asia and is by all means a third world economy.  We're a country that has been growing in the last two years but sadly our per capita income still lags neighbors such as Vietnam.  One peculiar thing about the Philippines is that despite its status as a developing economy, we have one an economic structure of a developed market.  We are, as many economists put it, a wanna-be U.S. economy where consumption--in tandem with the services sector-- is the main driver of growth. 

Filipinos simply love to consume.  In fact consumption drives almost 60% of the economy.  Forget about investment, buy things now is our motto.  This is where i think the levels of products comes into play at least in for my understanding. 

I may not be as goo goo ga ga over shopping or buying the latest gadget.  But i am a sucker for a good cup of coffee.  Now think about a cup of coffee as a product and I guess the core reason one may want to have this product can range from a) caffeine fix b) wake me upper c) status symbol.  For most Filipinos letter C drives a lot of the consumption for second wave coffee houses like Sbucks and Seattle's Best in the Philippines.  The Actual product of course is the latte itself and the augmented product im guessing is the personalized service you get from a place like Sbucks where baristas are supposed to know your name, your favorite drink and the type of milk you take in your coffee.  I'm tempted to say that an augmented product would be the specialty coffee drinks that you can only find in the particular store or the special discount cards that the particular coffee house offers.  Right around Christmas time, Starbucks will unveil its christmas drinks (toffee nut latte, peppermint mocha etc) and convince you that you need to drink 50 of them before this date to get a limited edition starbucks planner.  In the mad dash and frenzy i bought a 100 drinks, picked up two planners and have yet to open them.  Man did i fall for that.  But heck, they got me to buy all those drinks in that short a period of time. 

We are a world of consumption over here in Manila.  Live for today for tomorrow is another day to spend.  Somebody teach us how to save.