Shopping at Makro

Did I have fun yesterday or what?

When I came back to Karachi, I knew I would miss a few things - DVD rentals, books on Amazon, shopping at Costco, driving in California, the entreprenurial free spirit, and movies. Here is how things have shaped up in Karachi over the last four years.

a. Dvd rentals - Rs 90 for a pirated edition, master print. Smuggle the office multi media projector home, connect it to my amplified speakers and you have the joys of a full screen experience in your lounge.

b. Books on Amazon - 10 days for delivery of new books to you home. If you are buying used books, too bad.

c. Driving in California - I get my fix by doing the Gulshan - Defence sprint at 7 am in the morning. Don't knock it, till you try it.

e. Entreprenurial free spirit - 4 years of solid partying at Associates and Technologies. As Joseph Heller put it in closing time, I work for M&M enterprises and associates. My partners are enterprising, I associate.

The only item left was shopping at Costco and House of Habib and Makro took care of that yesterday. 300 car parking (jam packed), 25 plus counters, somewhere between 50,000 - 75,000 sqft of warehouse format space and price that reflect a discount of 10% - 20% over retail. 9 liters of pepsi for 190 bucks (3 dollars). For a firm that lives on colored water, the only thing cooler was storage solutions from Thailand and the tool box section.

There are glitches but they will get sorted out within the next few months. Still much better execution and value creation than Dmart, which, I am sorry to say has been a major disappointment and let down.

Don't take my word for it, go take a look. Head down from Hassan Square towards SITE, hang a right from the Site office intersection and you will hit MAKRO on the right.

Oh, btw, its CASH only but they have an ATM within the store.