Why pay more?

(Thing #178 I don’t understand about Malawi)

That’s what the Coke posters everywhere say.

“Coke – 50K. Why pay more?”

(50K is about $0.30)

I don’t disagree – I mean if that is the price, why would I pay more? It’s prominently advertised too – the price is on the posters, waving on flag streamers, painted on store walls, and printed directly on the bottle cap.

But sometimes, the price *is* more.

At a restaurant, I can understand – I’ve seen Coke listed for as much as 175K ($1.16)! And sometimes the price isn’t actually higher, you’re just being charged the bottle deposit. Also plastic bottles are waaay more expensive – 200K looks to be a typical price.

But there are definitely times when the price of the Coke itself is higher. Where an extra 10K ($0.06) or even 15K tacked onto the price charged. It’s not an azungu tax (white people are often quoted higher prices), it happens consistently, and I don’t understand. Is it the price for having refrigeration? For access to the bottle-opener? The privilege of buying it a hundred meters closer to your house? None of these consistently predict the price hike.

And if you’re going to charge an extra 10K, why do that beside a poster advertising the fact that you’re overcharging people?