2007/11/21
佢請客．你埋單
百佳超市停派膠袋，令茶怪跌眼鏡，在早前的文章已提過，免費膠袋對超市業務太重要，所帶來的好處遠較成本高。百佳的策略是否成功，仍要時間證明。在推廣手法方面上，茶怪感覺麻麻，如果說是為了減省成本，用來提高服務質素，這還說得過去。打正環保旗幟，可以贏得感性的環保組織的支持，但想真點，其實與環保無關。道理好簡單，我買一個膠袋兩毫，買十個都係二元，用廿蚊可以買一百個膠袋，我鍾意點用都得。百佳有沒有規定最多買幾個? 還是將膠袋當作一般貨品看待，你愈買得多愈好? 以前因為百佳承擔膠袋成本，是派也很忍手。相反，假設我顧及環保，不買膠袋，百佳又幹了甚麼去支持環保? 超市會否捐贈幾毫給獨立環保組織? 茶怪沒有聽聞。佢請客，要我埋單? 即使自備購物袋，我寧願去惠康。
2007/09/24
災難處理方案
當遇上電影《明日之後》的場面，地球氣候急劇改變，溫度驟降，全香港冰天雪地，你會到哪裡避難? 會否像男主角一樣，藏到圖書館，就地取材，燃燒圖書作取暖之用? 怕到時人人抄襲電影情節，迫爆圖書館，茶怪建議你到更安全暢適的地方，就是任何一間投資銀行，因為那裡存放大量招股書，每本幾百頁厚，可應付不時之須。
《28週後》又如何? 到處都是饑餓如狼的食人喪屍，如果你是故事中的美軍，開槍都開到手軟，你會怎麼辦? 茶怪想，最佳方法是向喪屍送上手槍、機關槍、手榴彈，讓他們自相殘殺。因為要決定一個可愛小孩，究竟將成為喪屍甲、乙還是丙的豐富午餐，暴力是唯一的解決方法，你打我、我打你的情況下，喪屍自然傷亡慘重，那個無辜的小孩或可趁亂脫險。人類與喪屍一樣自私，但人類較聰明，懂得制造武器，但更聰明的，是懂得制定法律，保障產權，以交易解決問題，和平共存。
2007/08/15
i'm a plastic bag
We hate plastic bags. Those bags we carry out of supermarkets everyday end up accumulating in landfills and damaging our environment. Conservation groups have urged the government to discourage the use of plastic bags and are winning widening support from the public. One of their proposals is to introduce a tax on plastic bags, or plastax. That's a fixed amount of taxation for every bag consumed. To many, it sounds to be a good idea to affect the behavior of thrifty households. But i have a different theory.
What is a plastic bag? Why supermarkets give it for free?
Isn't a plastic bag a free gift a supermarket gives for customers' convenience? Obviously, negative. Business is anything but philanthropy. Take a convenience store as an example. The cashier almost always asks whether you need a bag or not. If your answer is negative, he is trained to please you with a loud slogan: "Thank you for caring the environment." Indeed, the owner of the convenience store thanks you for saving him a bag. In the supermarket, the cashier never asks that question. Neither does he say anything to encourage you to refuse a bag.
Why the convenience store and the supermarket take different attitudes toward a plastic bag? The answer is, from the convenience store, you seldom buy more than you need, whereas, from the supermarket, you do. In the convenience store, you grasp a bottle of soft drink and some snacks, and go, because you know if you need anything else, you may always find another convenience store within a few footsteps. The convenience store chain knows they cannot make you buy more than you need, except, an extra chocolate bar and that's it.
Supermarket business is a different game. We go to supermarket to buy anything. We do have a shopping list or some idea what we need in advance. But we often get more than we need. Some economists or business gurus attribute the excessive purchase to the successful marketing strategies and the tactics of store layout. But few people observe the pragmatic bottom line. "How are we going to carry the extra stuff out of the supermarket?" Have you ever asked such a question? i never.
Without plastic bags, the amount of stuff purchased is limited to the size of your own bag. And the size of your bag depends on what you plan to buy before leaving home. Now, fully accustomed to the infinite supply of plastic bags, free of charge, that question is pointless. Supermarket knows it. Plastic bags are not for you to carry the stuff you need. They are to carry the stuff you don't need. That's why, unlike convenience store, supermarket never praises you for "caring the environment".
Supermarket wants you to understand that you don't have to worry about carrying the extra stuff even though you are not prepared to carry them. Then, it wants you to walk proudly out to the street, carrying its bags.
Have you ever noticed that there are two different kinds of plastic bags in supermarket? The obvious one is that cashier supplies, on both sides of which is printed with big and bright logo of the supermarket. The less obvious, but as common, is the smaller one that wraps wet stuff like meat, fish and vegetables. This one is faceless, all white without any logo or graphic design. Why are the two kinds so different? The answer is the faceless one sits inside the bright one when you walk out to the street and doesn't show up.
If you believe that a labeled bag is for you to distinguish what being bought from where, you are wrong. Of course, the label does serve such a purpose, but it cannot be the reason for the label to exist in the first place. A labeled bag is for other people to see, for advertising.
Remember the last time you brought a T-shirt and received an oversized carton sack from the boutique. Nothing advertises better than showing someone else is buying. Take a gas station as another example. Gasoline is the least sexy product apart from electricity. Unlike the monopolistic utility companies, gasoline companies compete with each other, if not in pricing. There is no way to tell which car has had its tank filled up by which gas company. The "labeled bag" strategy cannot work because there needs no bag. However, the marketing people do a little trick.
Gas stations give out free boxes of tissue paper with their logos printed on it. Naturally, you put the little box behind the backseat. And, by doing so, you do the gas station a favor by broadcasting an advertisement about the gas station. The audience is all the drivers behind you.
When you walk out to the street carrying the plastic bag of the supermarket, you do the advertising for the supermarket. The more bags you carry, the more physically challenged you look, the better.
i buy more than i need. i help it advertise. Plastic bag and i cannot be separated. From supermarket's viewpoint, i am a plastic bag.
It is the supermarket, not the consumer, who loves plastic bags. Imagine the government launches plastax and the number of consumers who accept plastic bags drops drastically. What would happen in the supermarket? First, shoppers have to leave behind some of the stuff they otherwise would purchase because they haven't prepared enough bags of their own. Second, they all come out the supermarket without a single hint at whether they have bought anything. Turning the street corner, nobody even knows they have ever shopped at where. If you were one of the supermarket owners, would you let that happen?
Supermarkets will do anything to protect plastic bags. For example, they would bear the cost of plastax. They would give out bonuses or coupons to keep you using plastic bags. As long as the plastax is lower than the cost of those bags made of recyclable and environment-friendly materials, supermarkets will keep plastic bags. The bottom-line is you can buy as much as you want and help do the advertising.
Then, all parties are happy, except smaller grocery shops and the start-ups. These smaller competitors don't have the resources to bear the cost of plastax. Neither can they upgrade the bag materials. In the end, plastax will stop small shops from providing customers' convenience, but it cannot stop supermarkets from giving out plastic bags. i believe plastax is one of the many examples that laws and regulations create unnecessarily biased business environment against entrepreneurs and in favor of big firms.
Quamnet column
What is a plastic bag? Why supermarkets give it for free?
Isn't a plastic bag a free gift a supermarket gives for customers' convenience? Obviously, negative. Business is anything but philanthropy. Take a convenience store as an example. The cashier almost always asks whether you need a bag or not. If your answer is negative, he is trained to please you with a loud slogan: "Thank you for caring the environment." Indeed, the owner of the convenience store thanks you for saving him a bag. In the supermarket, the cashier never asks that question. Neither does he say anything to encourage you to refuse a bag.
Why the convenience store and the supermarket take different attitudes toward a plastic bag? The answer is, from the convenience store, you seldom buy more than you need, whereas, from the supermarket, you do. In the convenience store, you grasp a bottle of soft drink and some snacks, and go, because you know if you need anything else, you may always find another convenience store within a few footsteps. The convenience store chain knows they cannot make you buy more than you need, except, an extra chocolate bar and that's it.
Supermarket business is a different game. We go to supermarket to buy anything. We do have a shopping list or some idea what we need in advance. But we often get more than we need. Some economists or business gurus attribute the excessive purchase to the successful marketing strategies and the tactics of store layout. But few people observe the pragmatic bottom line. "How are we going to carry the extra stuff out of the supermarket?" Have you ever asked such a question? i never.
Without plastic bags, the amount of stuff purchased is limited to the size of your own bag. And the size of your bag depends on what you plan to buy before leaving home. Now, fully accustomed to the infinite supply of plastic bags, free of charge, that question is pointless. Supermarket knows it. Plastic bags are not for you to carry the stuff you need. They are to carry the stuff you don't need. That's why, unlike convenience store, supermarket never praises you for "caring the environment".
Supermarket wants you to understand that you don't have to worry about carrying the extra stuff even though you are not prepared to carry them. Then, it wants you to walk proudly out to the street, carrying its bags.
Have you ever noticed that there are two different kinds of plastic bags in supermarket? The obvious one is that cashier supplies, on both sides of which is printed with big and bright logo of the supermarket. The less obvious, but as common, is the smaller one that wraps wet stuff like meat, fish and vegetables. This one is faceless, all white without any logo or graphic design. Why are the two kinds so different? The answer is the faceless one sits inside the bright one when you walk out to the street and doesn't show up.
If you believe that a labeled bag is for you to distinguish what being bought from where, you are wrong. Of course, the label does serve such a purpose, but it cannot be the reason for the label to exist in the first place. A labeled bag is for other people to see, for advertising.
Remember the last time you brought a T-shirt and received an oversized carton sack from the boutique. Nothing advertises better than showing someone else is buying. Take a gas station as another example. Gasoline is the least sexy product apart from electricity. Unlike the monopolistic utility companies, gasoline companies compete with each other, if not in pricing. There is no way to tell which car has had its tank filled up by which gas company. The "labeled bag" strategy cannot work because there needs no bag. However, the marketing people do a little trick.
Gas stations give out free boxes of tissue paper with their logos printed on it. Naturally, you put the little box behind the backseat. And, by doing so, you do the gas station a favor by broadcasting an advertisement about the gas station. The audience is all the drivers behind you.
When you walk out to the street carrying the plastic bag of the supermarket, you do the advertising for the supermarket. The more bags you carry, the more physically challenged you look, the better.
i buy more than i need. i help it advertise. Plastic bag and i cannot be separated. From supermarket's viewpoint, i am a plastic bag.
It is the supermarket, not the consumer, who loves plastic bags. Imagine the government launches plastax and the number of consumers who accept plastic bags drops drastically. What would happen in the supermarket? First, shoppers have to leave behind some of the stuff they otherwise would purchase because they haven't prepared enough bags of their own. Second, they all come out the supermarket without a single hint at whether they have bought anything. Turning the street corner, nobody even knows they have ever shopped at where. If you were one of the supermarket owners, would you let that happen?
Supermarkets will do anything to protect plastic bags. For example, they would bear the cost of plastax. They would give out bonuses or coupons to keep you using plastic bags. As long as the plastax is lower than the cost of those bags made of recyclable and environment-friendly materials, supermarkets will keep plastic bags. The bottom-line is you can buy as much as you want and help do the advertising.
Then, all parties are happy, except smaller grocery shops and the start-ups. These smaller competitors don't have the resources to bear the cost of plastax. Neither can they upgrade the bag materials. In the end, plastax will stop small shops from providing customers' convenience, but it cannot stop supermarkets from giving out plastic bags. i believe plastax is one of the many examples that laws and regulations create unnecessarily biased business environment against entrepreneurs and in favor of big firms.
Quamnet column
2007/03/29
少立法，多執法
看新聞有時覺得好好笑，甚麼東西都算到政府頭上，尤其是星期日的電視新聞，環保團體指戶外廣告牌上燈泡太多，要政府立法規管，其他包括工人保障、家庭紛爭、愛護動物等問題，也要政府立法，或發上指引，茶怪想，政府怎麼辨? 它有能力對各行各業了解清楚? 究竟一個廣告牌應掛多少個燈泡，才算合理? 太多的法例只會幫倒忙，如何確實執行現有的法例更重要。廣告牌太亮，有否影響鄰居作息? 觸犯滋擾條例?
另一個好無聊的規例，是對付小巴超速問題，不知是誰想出來的主意，規定每輛小巴須安裝超速警告器，它全程顯示車速，每當超速，它就發出吵耳的bb聲響，它還印有小巴的車牌。作用是提醒乘客，叫他們如有不滿可投訴。結果，你都知，小巴繼續超速，超速警告器不停響，要乘客繼續坐過山車之餘，還要忍受噪音。小巴商又要承擔安裝警告器的成本，長期測驗和維修又是錢。 還有路段不同，車速限制不一，警告器沒有辦法因應不同路段的需要發揮「作用」。
其實要防止小巴超速方法好簡單 -- 抄牌，你一超速，就收「牛肉干」。執法不夠嚴謹，再立一千條例也沒用。
社會反對壟斷聲音此起彼落，要求政府訂立「公平競爭法」，思維方向和上述廣告牌的類似，就是有問題，就立法，茶怪對此有所保留，立法是否可以解決問題? 大財團有好多大狀律師幫手，與政府關係又好，取得waiver好易，繁文縟節只會加重中小企負擔。事實上，問題不在於現有的法例足夠與否，而是執行夠不夠徹底。以地產商為例，他們被指在賣地過程中達成協議，成功避免競爭。其實這類協議可能觸犯現有的競投法例，但事情不了了之。
另一個好無聊的規例，是對付小巴超速問題，不知是誰想出來的主意，規定每輛小巴須安裝超速警告器，它全程顯示車速，每當超速，它就發出吵耳的bb聲響，它還印有小巴的車牌。作用是提醒乘客，叫他們如有不滿可投訴。結果，你都知，小巴繼續超速，超速警告器不停響，要乘客繼續坐過山車之餘，還要忍受噪音。小巴商又要承擔安裝警告器的成本，長期測驗和維修又是錢。 還有路段不同，車速限制不一，警告器沒有辦法因應不同路段的需要發揮「作用」。
其實要防止小巴超速方法好簡單 -- 抄牌，你一超速，就收「牛肉干」。執法不夠嚴謹，再立一千條例也沒用。
社會反對壟斷聲音此起彼落，要求政府訂立「公平競爭法」，思維方向和上述廣告牌的類似，就是有問題，就立法，茶怪對此有所保留，立法是否可以解決問題? 大財團有好多大狀律師幫手，與政府關係又好，取得waiver好易，繁文縟節只會加重中小企負擔。事實上，問題不在於現有的法例足夠與否，而是執行夠不夠徹底。以地產商為例，他們被指在賣地過程中達成協議，成功避免競爭。其實這類協議可能觸犯現有的競投法例，但事情不了了之。
2007/03/03
關乜事
明天渣打馬拉松，如果有人不適，心臟病發或抽根，環保團體就會拿這些事件造文章，說香港的空氣質素每況愈下，導致愈來愈多跑手不適，甚至有生命危險。空氣質素的確差了，愈來愈多跑手不適也是事實，兩者是否有關? 茶怪前文指出，「香港女多男少，好男人難求。」是謬誤，「空氣質素差，跑手不適」是另一個。
空氣差是不會導致抽根的，愈來愈多跑手抽根，又是何解? 渣打馬拉松愈來愈受歡迎，參加人數愈來愈多，不適跑手的數量多，是正常現象，加上有很多新參加者，平時缺乏練習，只是跟朋友一齊玩，或感受比賽氣氛，有些勇字當頭，沒有注意自己身體的反應的，不適的機會更大，輕則抽根，嚴重的送命。
空氣日日差，不會在比賽當日特別差的，如果平時每星期有練習，也沒有出事，比賽當日因空氣差而不適，是說不通的。唯一受影響的可能是海外跑手。
學者，包括經濟學者，近年喜歡玩correlation，很容易用數據發掘到一些有趣，甚至有「利用價值」的關係，但實際上是無關的，只不過是同時發生而已。你只需要畫個圖，比較空氣污染和渣打馬拉松參加人數歷年的變化，很容易得出一個「學術性」的結論 -- 空氣污染是港人愛跑步的原因。
空氣差是不會導致抽根的，愈來愈多跑手抽根，又是何解? 渣打馬拉松愈來愈受歡迎，參加人數愈來愈多，不適跑手的數量多，是正常現象，加上有很多新參加者，平時缺乏練習，只是跟朋友一齊玩，或感受比賽氣氛，有些勇字當頭，沒有注意自己身體的反應的，不適的機會更大，輕則抽根，嚴重的送命。
空氣日日差，不會在比賽當日特別差的，如果平時每星期有練習，也沒有出事，比賽當日因空氣差而不適，是說不通的。唯一受影響的可能是海外跑手。
學者，包括經濟學者，近年喜歡玩correlation，很容易用數據發掘到一些有趣，甚至有「利用價值」的關係，但實際上是無關的，只不過是同時發生而已。你只需要畫個圖，比較空氣污染和渣打馬拉松參加人數歷年的變化，很容易得出一個「學術性」的結論 -- 空氣污染是港人愛跑步的原因。
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