There is much to talk about this week, beginning with the classic question of why instagram stores insist on having you “DM for price.” On the same note, I also look back at an old story and think about arbitrage on instagram ‘thrift stores’ selling ‘pre-loved’ clothes. I also discuss startup culture and some very interesting services being offered on Fiverr. All this and more in this week’s social media roundup:
- DM for price
https://twitter.com/manahylk/status/1479349777267580929?s=20
Being an instagram seller is hard. You’ve got to manage orders and deal with DMs. As a consumer, “DM for prices” is the largest deterrent to buying from a page. However, here Manahyl shows us the other side of the picture. It isn’t as rosy for sellers when they quote prices and are shamed for them. However, this shows the Pakistani approach to haggle for prices – degrade a product you like until the seller gives you a discount.
That said, the end goal of a small business as well is to make money. Not putting prices on display detters potential customers. Our advice would be to get rid of the “DM for price” and ignore rude customers that try to bully you into decreasing prices. Remember, always know your worth and the worth of your products, do not take rudeness, but also know your target market well enough to give them what they want so you can maximise profits.
2. Online landa
https://twitter.com/Saadist98/status/1479350729047486466?s=20
We’ve previously written about this arbitrage in thrift shops and the arbitrage these instagram pages take part in. “Curated content” lol. One has to hand it to enterprising young minds for going ahead and making money this way. There are a lot of young students that get into the business and make a decent side hustle of it by being quick to recognise brands at the landa and being savvy with social media marketing. That said, the distaste surrounding the nature of the business is not easy to sake.
3. Service economy going whack
https://twitter.com/Huk06/status/1478301556164472834?s=20
I wish there was a person that I could pay to go to random weddings instead of me. Capitalism is great. On a completely unrelated note our assistant editor offers a similar service. For exactly Rs6,000, he will go to your wedding, stand alone in a corner with a single teardrop hanging from the corner of his eye, and sing “channa mereya” to make everyone at the wedding think you had a mysterious ex that nobody knew about. He has not taken to Fiverr just yet, but feel free to email him for service details.
{Note from the editing staff: We make no guarantees as to how good the rendition of “channa mereya” will be. All we can confirm is that he will indeed sing it and people will notice.}
4. Startup culture
https://twitter.com/NaufalEsbhani/status/1479329713709633541?s=20
Startup culture is top tier. Honestly, nothing is better than waking up at work. Basically, you wake up and start working in bed. That’s life. No work just vibes. That and fudging some numbers on company time just for the lols.
5. HR would like a word!
https://twitter.com/vikashpaulcomic/status/1477638471401410564?s=20
You need to watch this video to get the tweet, sorry print readers. I don’t know about everyone else but work from home just feels natural at this point. I don’t even remember life before it.
{Note from the editing staff: We think Ariba is forgetting that Profit started work from the office a few weeks ago. We don’t mean to rat you out here, but HR might want to have a word.}
6. Collective headaches
https://twitter.com/Pakistanomy/status/1477274089140142081?s=20
This is because the demand for paracetamol has risen due to the headaches the talk shows give us. It is actually quite a miracle that the production has almost doubled and not increased even more than that.
7. Early to tweet, early to fess up
https://twitter.com/razak_dawood/status/1478990935191179264?s=20
Very rare to see a government official come out openly and explain in detail what went wrong and also admit their mistake. However, all of this could have been avoided if the ministry wasn’t in a hurry to tweet to stay relevant.
8. Some confusing numbers
https://twitter.com/AliKhizar/status/1478704645744873472?s=20
If you work in the financial sector, numbers are your bread and butter. We all know that the SBP and PBS data shows different numbers based on the fact that the accounting procedure is different, and the calculation method too. However, the fact that a minister is tweeting different data makes one look at three different numbers for a parameter. That is just annoying and causes more confusion in the market than one would want.
