Behind those closed doors

we can hear some pitches of noisy sessions.

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We've walked passed this shop several times whenever we're meeting the in-laws for breakfast but didn't manage to understand what's retailing inside. Rather, we're curious and surprised to find a mysterious shop located in the Clementi West neighbourhood.

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So not until we come across an article published by The Newpaper on Sun, Jul 26, 2009, our curiosity come to light:
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THEY sell everything from detergents to pillows. These sales people move between estates every three months or so, targeting retirees who are lured by gifts.

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The sales pitch is conducted behind locked doors with windows covered up with posters. Inside, middle-aged men and women roar in unison when the salesman makes his pitch. Holding up a waist-belt, he yells in Hokkien: 'Do you want this?' 'Yes!' the crowd cries.

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The items are not cheap - $120 for a pillow and $200 for a pain-relief waist-belt. The people behind the event say they don't apply pressure tactics. Case says they've received feedback from two people, but no official complaints.

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The sales people are not making medical claims so the Health Sciences Authority (HSA) says they don't need to be licensed.

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And the people attending the event don't seem to mind forking out the money. Like Mary (not her real name), a retiree in her 80s. Her daily routine includes watching her afternoon soap opera on TV and visits to the shop, Matakiteya, which sells a variety of what are largely health products.

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Mary gets there by 8am every day, half an hour before the doors open, because she has to hustle with other retirees and elderly folk - some in wheelchairs, some with walking frames - to get into the long queue.
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The shop has only three sales sessions daily; each seats about 80 and consists of a two-hour presentation of the featured product for the day. Customers enter after getting their special passes stamped at the door.

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Matakiteya, which means 'Come again' in Japanese, moved to Block 727, Clementi West Street 2, about two weeks ago. It is the only shop of its kind in Singapore, changing venues every three months, and with branches in Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Cambodia. Mary, and many like her, have followed the shop for years as it moves from estate to estate, drawn by incentives such as free rolls of toilet paper.

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Freebies
The freebies given out every session include product samples, Chinese cooking wine and cans of longans. Mary told The New Paper in Mandarin: 'Old people like me, we have nothing to do anyway.' Mary lives with her daughter, Angie, 45, who is unemployed. Together they spend over $1,000 a year on Matakiteya's products. These include a $120 pillow, a $200 pain-relief waist-belt, and $600 on pills said to cleanse the body of food colourings and preservatives.
She gets about $500 a month from renting out a room in her three-bedroom flat and from her four sons.

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Matakiteya's goods range from a $4 bath soap to a $2,000 mattress that contains a crystal silicate mineral called tourmaline. According to the company website, tourmaline has been proven to improve circulation, relieve stress and ease fatigue. During each session, shop manager Mr Lawrence Ong explains the uses of the products in both Hokkien and Mandarin.

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The sales pitches are noisy sessions, peppered with jokes and cheers. A trio of salesgirls chorus 'Hai!' or 'Tio' after each sentence ('Yes' in Japanese and Hokkien respectively). Every time the main speaker demanded: 'Do you understand what we are saying?', or 'Do you want this product?', everyone would respond in unison: 'Yes!'
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The New Paper was treated to a short lecture on the alleged healing power of infra-red rays and touramaline when we sat in last week.
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But these claims have not been verified by any authority. Nor are there any laws that regulate health supplements. A passer-by, a Malaysian chef who wanted to be known only as Mr Heng, said: 'It sounds like they're playing games inside but you can't see anything because the shop front is opaque.'

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Sales promotion gig
When told that it was a sales promotion gig, the puzzled 42-year-old asked: 'Why must they close the door? No one knows what they're selling and some people might not dare to go in.' Is Matakiteya pressuring customers into buying expensive products? Said Mr Ong: 'People have their own minds. We can't force them to buy anything.'
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But the shop manager, who has worked for the company for nine years, admitted that the only thing he knew about the products he was selling was that they were 'all from Japan'. The rapid-fire questions and chorus of 'Hai!' or 'Tio', he added, were to 'create an atmosphere', and not to persuade the customers into purchasing.
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So why cover the shopfront with posters, and lock the doors? These measures, replied Mr Ong, were to help customers focus on the sales presentation. When questioned if his business is targeting the old and the gullible, the shop manager replied: 'I can't stop what other people think about us - it's up to people to decide if we have anything to hide.'

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Said Ms Angela Tan, one of Matakiteya's business partners: 'We've been around for 11 years already. If there's anything fishy about us, surely the news would have got out by now.'

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In fact after reading The Newpaper's article on Matakiteya, I do recall that several years ago, my maternal Grande Dame advised me that she attended some sales pitch session who gives out attractive freebies after each talk session. She lives in the Aljunied area and the shop is located nearby her marketing hideout.
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What took me more than surprise is when grand-mama told me she brought from that shop, a product that is supposedly to help in purify toxics in the body or something to that relation - the cost? Several thousands of dollars! Yeah, my jaws dropped all over! You know what I mean.

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