Department of Trade and Industry-Davao (DTI-Davao) Regional Director Rachel S. Remitio said on Friday that the department is conducting weekly price monitoring price of school supplies at the major malls in Davao City.
Remitio noted that for the three weeks that DTI-Davao conducted the monitoring in the major malls, it did not find violators.
“But we have observed that some of our bookstores and department stores are selling school supplies most of the items yung mga luma na mga stocks. We are expecting more school supplies coming in the next few days,” Remitio said during Business Forum @ Hukad at Ayala Malls Abreeza.
Remitio said If they find stores violating the prices for school supplies, DTI-Davao will report these to its head office.
Meanwhile, Remitio said that fortunately for the year 2024, there is an increase in the number of stock-keeping units (SKUs) for the different school supplies that include notebooks, crayons, pencils, erasers, etc.
She added that there are around 173 SKUs for the school supplies, which is an increase of around 56% from the 117 SKUs in 2023.
“But for this year you observed increases or changes in our school supplies from the 117 SKUs of 2023. Eighty of that the prices have remained unchanged. Wala tayong increases in the prices of 80 SKUs for school supplies,” Remitio said.
She also said that among the factors of the hike is the increase in the prices of raw materials, especially products like paper and crayons.
“The increase in prices in crayons was brought about by yung mag change ng classifications ng crayons from being regular crayons to now premium so there were changes in the composition of raw materials used for crayons to increase the quality,” Remitio said.
