Supply & Demand

Shopping on the island can be interesting. For the most part you can get some version of just about anything you'd need here if you look around enough (notice I say some version and need). You've got your basic staple stores: Cost-U-Less (our version of CostCo), Forsgrens (kind of like Walmart only much much smaller), and KS Mart (the island's King Soopers--at least the one in my village of Tafuna). There are also tons of other little shops on every corner that carry all sorts of items from toiletries and snack food to fabric and school supplies. Every store has something different and if you check out enough of them, you find all kinds of surprises. For instance, Steven & Sons actually carries green Tobasco. I love green Tobasco!

The age old question then becomes how much to buy. You see, you never can tell when or if you'll see a particular product again, so it follows that if you see something you like/want/need you should buy it then and there and lots of it, right? Well, that may not be your best course of action I've come to discover. On more than one occassion, people I know have gone into stores looking for something they have seen and/or purchased there before only to find it no longer available. And when they asked about the missing items (which were not obscure items, but rather very marketable and popular) they were told that indeed those items were very popular and for that reason they are no longer carrying them. Because they keep selling out. Apparently they don't teach economics in school here. Supply and demand...it's a crazy concept.