THE DEPARTMENT of Trade and Industry (DTI) revealed that among the 117 stock-keeping units (SKUs) of school supplies this year, 68% of them have no price movement while about 8% have decreased.
During a business forum on July 5, Rachel Remitio, DTI-Davao director, said the increase in prices was only 24%, specifically in raw materials such as paper.
“Ever since the prices of these school supplies were released, we have been conducting our weekly price monitoring for each key city in the country, including Davao City,” Remitio said.
Remitio noted that a total of 173 SKUs were submitted this year, an increase of 56 SKUs to the previous year. SKUs are numbers (usually eight alphanumeric digits) that retailers assign to products to keep track of stock levels internally.
DTI issued the Gabay sa Pamimili ng School Supplies, a price guide for consumers in purchasing school items as the new school year begins on July 29.
Based on the agency’s monitoring, there were no price violators, especially in major shopping malls and retail establishments.
“We have observed that in some of our bookstores and department stores that are selling school supplies, most of the items they are selling were still their old stocks,” she said.
She said stores violating the prices will be reported including the items sold.
“We’ll report this to our head office, and they will be the ones to discuss it with manufacturers and distributors,” Remitio said.
Furthermore, the DTI reminds consumers to check the labels of school supplies. The labels must have the name and address of the manufacturer or importer, and the number of leaves must be indicated in notebooks and paper, among others.
