Enjoy 24-hour shopping at select stores

Aug 24, 2006

It had been a long night of fun at a friend’s kasiki somewhere in town. My friends had mostly been drinking themselves silly. I joined them in trying, albeit unsuccessfully, to dance our limbs off.

By Raphael Okello

It had been a long night of fun at a friend’s kasiki somewhere in town. My friends had mostly been drinking themselves silly. I joined them in trying, albeit unsuccessfully, to dance our limbs off.

What we successfully managed to do, however, was to dance ourselves hungry! None of us had had the foresight to have diner before jumping into the fun. We had rushed to the party straight from work. But it was 3:00am and hunger was biting hard. It was not just too late to eat but an immoral hour to be looking for food.

Someone suggested Jinja Road Shell Select Shop. And it came in quite handy indeed. We picked up cakes, milk, yoghurt and soft drinks. For me, it both a shocking experience and a relief to be shopping when everyone else in the country was sleeping. I shopped beyond killing the hunger. I moved about the neatly-arranged shelves picking toothpaste, bread, tinned beef and soap – the typical bachelor’s essentials.

Over the last 10 years, the shopping culture in Uganda has been liberalised, but shopping in the dead of the night? I thought it was a whole new experience.

And for most people to engage in it, they must have a problem that will not make them feel too lazy to get out of bed. And those problems will always come up; you just never know when you will badly need airtime, a cigarette, sanitary towel or even a condom.

In fact one of the shop attendants revealed, “Bread, wines, spirits, soft drinks, milk, cigarettes, Blue Band or jam are the items most demanded for late at night but condoms fly off the shelves.”

So there you go! But you may not necessarily require an emergency to buy something. You may work late (up to 10:00pm) or get held up somewhere and by the time you are heading home, you realise the shops are closed yet you need to buy diapers, toys, cornflakes, eggs, sugar, rice and electronics like blenders and a flat iron.

You do not have to travel to Shell Jinja Road to buy these items. Almost every suburb has an accessible 24-hour operating Shell Select Shop. Shell Bugolobi near Kataza, Shell Ntinda (from Nakawa) and Shell Kabalagala are always open 24 hours.
Just because you might be shopping when the entire country is sleeping, do not expect to get something at a price you would consider a steal.

Select shops tend to raise prices of their items from anywhere between sh100 and sh1,000 or more. But for some items, the prices are similar or lower than the ones on the open market.
Prices also tend to vary from one select shop to another. Otherwise, I found prices of other items exorbitant. Had it been daytime, I would have been infuriated.

Since the Select Shop may be the only place you have to turn to during awkward hours to buy a sweet, ice cream or an apple, then I suppose you will have to be more tolerant with their prices.

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