Ever wondered which is better? well i'm a member of both stores, they both cater mostly to us smaller people who have either have a small sari-sari store or a canteen-cum-restaurant, i would prefer to have both, but heck..i got a small space, so it the sari-sari store biz for me. Anyways back to the original topic, Puregold or Makro? They are both wholesalers, selling food and non-food items to us retailers.
Makro has lower prices, bigger carts, store and parking lots, friendlier merchandisers. They also have free stuff if you buy a certain product, which would mean more money for a businesswoman or more savings for a homemaker. Drawbacks are they don't bags your purchases, you'll have to have the initiative to get boxes and put your merchandise in them when you get to your car/jeep, if you want bags, you will have to buy them from the cashier, the good thing about boxing you purchases is you can get as many boxes as you want, as long as there are stocks. you can resell the boxes at junk shops to get more money.
As i've said the parking area is really huge, but the store location is not conducive for small entrepreneurs since the tricycle and jeepney zone is kind of far. so if you don't own a car, tricycle or any type of conveyance, stick to puregold. Be careful when you're using you credit card or your atm for debit because some cashier are not well verse in understanding your instruction when handling cards, for short they don't listen pretty well, you tell them to debit this much from your atm and charge the rest to the credit card, ask them if they got it, and if they say yes, make sure she does what you want, i learned the hard way, i asked to debit only P3,000 and charge my credit card the remaining P12,000+, she confirmed she understood but did the opposite instead. Another time was when i ask to debit my purchase in my LANDBANK atm card, the cashier informed me that they can't since the store only allow certain atm cards, when i told her i already used my card in that store before and anyway there's a picture of the cards that they can actually debit from, it had a Landbank atm card in that picture , (you know the picture of ATM cards that the store allows to debit from, its usually posted on top of their cash register). Well anyways, she told me the picture was just a picture, she can only allow BPI, because Landbank was not expressnet, i tried to explain to her that Landbank was also expressnet but since i couldn't make her understand, i had to ask her to ask her supervisor to decide, the supervisor arrived, she was told that my card can be allowed, so i was able to buy my purchases. Another time was when i bought an appliance and wanted it on installment basis, if you are in a hurry, ask the cashier if she REALLY knows how to process the installment system on your card, because if not, she'll just charge it straight, and when you recieve the copy and see that in't not on instalment basis, you have to go to the process of informing a supervisor, having the purchased cancelled, and you have wait for the supervisor to explain to the cashier how to charge the credit card on installment basis. For short, it will take a lot of time, so my advice, bring cash to Makro.
There are two really great things about Makro, the first one is their customer service, very courteous, very knowlegable in store policies, etc..The second is that, their veggies and fish are really FRESH, talk about fresh from the farm or sea.
For Puregold, you can spot their stores anywhere now, especially the jeepney route, so basically even if some of their stores have limited parking space, it's not a problem, the jeepneys are always there. Prices are a little bit higher compared to Makro, but not all of them. THey have a reward program, for every P300 of participating product or P1000 of any purchase you get a point, accumulated points can be redeemed into gift certificates.
If your just starting out and don't have much capital yet, Puregold is your best bet. You see at Makro you have to buy by bulk, some are packed in 6's, 12's, 20's, etc., some even you have to buy in boxes, but when you do buy them in boxes, you get them at a lower cost. At Puregold, you may buy even just one item per piece, so the chances of buying alot of something your customers won't want is low. Also at Puregold, the range of products is awesome, you have a lot of variety of each product to choose from. Cashiers are faster and know how to use the debit system and the credit card system as well. Merchandisers and Security Guards greet you with a smile and are fast to help you out when you need it (lifting boxes, asking which aisle is a certain product, etc.). Drawbacks, for starters, their baggers are required to count the product, so if they miss the actual count, you'll have to wait for them to either be able to guess the right answer or for them to recount your purchases again, either way, you'll be waiting longer than you expect. Baggers also have a habit of being insolent at times, specially when they are near their break time, one experience i had was when i asked the bager to box my purchases, since there was no boxes at hand, he said he'll just go get some. It took him a long time to return, by the time he returned the cashier had finished ringing up my purchases, i already had paid for them, and another bagger had started to boxed them. We asked what took him so long, he said he couldn't find any boxes and anyway he was near his break, then he proceeded to talk to another bagger instead of helping the other bagger. Another drawback is the customer service, i think they are overworked or something, most of them are grumpy, so when you ask a question they would refer you to the person next to her and when you ask that person she won't know the answer and i'll be told to ask the first person i was talking to, at this point the first one would be on the microphone announcing something...so your best bet, ask the Security Guard, they know most of the questions you need, one female guard once told me about the return policy of their store, she was really helpful.
so you see, they both have good things and bad things about them, i still go to both stores, which store i go to depends on what i am buying or how much time i have, if i need only a couple of things for the store, i go to Puregold, if i am in a hurry, i go to Makro. The drawbacks, you learn to deal with it, anyway, so far i think they are trying to fix their boo-boos, they are making an effort.
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