Kuala lumpur: The Ministry of Domestic Trade and Cost of Living (KPDN) aims to attract at least 100,000 new users to the Price Catcher application by year-end, adding to the more than 552,000 downloads recorded so far. Its Deputy Minister, Datuk Dr Fuziah Salleh, expressed confidence in achieving this target, highlighting the application’s usefulness in helping users make informed purchasing decisions for daily necessities.
According to BERNAMA News Agency, the Price Catcher application, introduced in 2019 as a price comparison platform, currently sees only 62 per cent of its registered users actively engaging with it. Fuziah noted that awareness of the platform remains low, attributing this to consumer habits and emphasizing that advocacy is a shared responsibility involving the ministry, NGOs, consumers, and the community. She stressed the importance of collective efforts to raise awareness about the application’s benefits.
Fuziah also mentioned that KPDN is continuously enhancing the application to aid consumers in understanding pricing and making informed choices. While acknowledging the limitations of controlling prices in a free market economy, she emphasized the consumer’s power to choose. The ministry is actively promoting the application through various initiatives, including the Buy Malaysian Goods Carnival, KPDN Tour, MADANI Rakyat Programme, and Rahmah Sales.
Fuziah highlighted the challenges in keeping the application updated with the latest price information, pointing out that some premises change their prices after monitoring. Price monitoring officers conduct checks and update prices early in the day, with efforts made to ensure the application provides current pricing data. Additional challenges include instances where monitored goods are unavailable during inspections, affecting the recording and display of prices in the application.
She explained that price data collection is done through sampling due to the extensive manpower and costs required to monitor every premise in Malaysia. The ministry currently employs 880 price monitoring officers to cover 2,204 premises, a number that Fuziah believes needs to be increased to improve monitoring efforts.