Soaring consumer prices fuel bargain hunting, spending cuts

Rising consumer prices have forced shoppers to hunt for bargains and cut back on overall spending, a poll by a local economic organization showed Tuesday.

The Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) poll conducted on 500 households nationwide showed the vast majority of consumers only buying products that are on sale, seeking cheaper products and making small-volume purchases.

It added that people have also migrated to cheaper product brands to reduce outlays with 94.0 percent saying they were more conscious of prices than a year earlier.

"The rise in consumers prices that has made goods more expensive is causing people to become more price conscious," the KCCI said.

Korea's consumer prices rose 4 percent for the whole of 2011, hitting the upper ceiling of the Bank of Korea's 2-4 percent inflation control target band. In February, domestic prices rose 3.1 percent from a year earlier.

The latest findings showed 90 percent of the households polled buying products that were on sale, with 94 percent and 86 percent, respectively, seeking cheaper goods or brands.

Of those surveyed, 69 percent said they stayed away from purchasing products in bulk.

The chamber of commence, in addition, said 89.6 percent of the respondents took advantage of promotional events to buy products at lower prices.

The KCCI, meanwhile, said that ordinary consumers wanted the government to do more to control inflation and revive the national economy that grew 3.8 percent in 2011. For 2012, the government expects the economy to expand 3.7 percent from the year before. (Yonhap)