My Free Reflective Essay Sample on Commodity Prices

Reflective essays are academic essays; what makes an essay “good” will work for a reflective essay. What is different about a reflective essay is that the essay is about you and your thinking. However, you will need evidence from your course to back up your reflections.

   Reflection Journal   

Sometimes companies struggle a lot with increased input costs yet are still unwilling or unable to shift the costs to consumers. As a result, profit margins together with stock prices depreciate while consumers benefit (Sen, 2019). Last year December, Christmas was the season was launched. People were shopping for food and clothes throughout the month in preparation for Christmas. I went to buy some food items for Christmas in the supermarket. I was impressed by how prices for all commodities were reduced. In essence, it was a month for Christmas and every business was competing for customers therefore; products were put on offer, lowering their prices so as to attract more customers. I shopped for various items that I needed and ended up saving a lot of money since the prices had been significantly reduced during that period. The fact is that the input cost was high but the business and supermarkets had to take the liability while consumers benefited by saving money on their shopping. Later in January, supermarkets and other businesses hiked the prices of their commodities. Prices were increased almost by 30% of the normal prices. It was time for the consumers to be hit by inflation and also helped to minimize the input cost pressures on businesses.

Based on the positive theory, supermarkets and other businesses considered the value or benefit of lowering prices for commodities since it helps in attracting customers and also helps to establish customer loyalty since such reduction of prices for goods and services is a sign of reward. The regular customers will feel rewarded and also new customers will be attracted. This generated a high number of sales which contributed to the long-run equilibrium. Upon reaching January, supermarkets sought to compensate for the losses they had encountered in December and therefore focused on increasing their profit margin by increasing the prices for their products and services. Supermarkets and businesses benefited due to increased profit whereas the consumers felt the inflation impact by spending more on products than they are willing to pay. The decision to increase prices was majorly for the purpose of minimising input costs and increasing the value of the supermarket.