WILLEMSTAD – A new comparison of 81 products at 29 Curaçao pharmacies shows that consumers face not only substantial differences in prices but also major differences in product availability, making it difficult to identify a single pharmacy as the cheapest for an entire shopping basket.
The August 2026 survey by Fundashon pa Konsumidó compared a broad selection of personal-care products, including toothpaste, deodorant, soap, shampoo, body lotion, mouthwash, shaving products and facial-care items.
The results show that some pharmacies had prices available for far more of the 81 surveyed products than others.
Botika Cerrito had the largest number of listed products in the comparison, with prices recorded for 66 of the 81 items. Botika Novo followed with 64, while Sta. Rosa and Tera Cora each had 57 products listed. Mahaai had prices for 56 products.
At the other end, Plaza had prices recorded for only 24 of the 81 products. Gosie had 29, while Sta. Maria had 36 and De Savaan 38.
That difference is important when comparing the total amounts shown in the survey.
A pharmacy with a much lower total is not necessarily cheaper overall if significantly fewer products were available there. For example, the spreadsheet itself calculates totals based only on the number of products found at each location. Directly comparing those totals without taking availability into account could therefore give consumers a misleading impression.
The survey provides another interesting indicator: how often each pharmacy recorded the lowest or highest price for an individual product.
Groot Piscadera recorded the lowest price for 20 products, the highest number in the survey. Cerrito followed with 19, while Novo had the lowest price for 16 products and Sorsaka for 12.
However, these figures also need context because pharmacies did not all carry the same number of surveyed products.
On the other side of the comparison, Popular recorded the highest price for 19 products, the largest number in the survey. De Savaan followed with 13, while Mahuma had the highest price for 11 products. Sta. Maria and Tera Cora each recorded the highest price for nine products.
The findings illustrate why consumers may benefit from comparing individual products instead of assuming that one pharmacy will always be the cheapest.
Price differences can be considerable.
Listerine Total Care, for example, ranged from XCG 10.70 to XCG 29.20 depending on the pharmacy. Palmer’s Cocoa Butter Fragrance body lotion ranged from XCG 10.70 to XCG 28.00, while Florida Water, 7.5 oz, ranged from XCG 9.24 to XCG 21.95.
Other products showed much narrower differences, meaning the potential savings from shopping around vary significantly depending on the item.
The comparison also highlights how fragmented the market can be. No pharmacy in the survey had prices listed for all 81 products, making it impossible from these data alone to construct a completely identical 81-item basket at every location.
The results therefore do not establish that any one pharmacy is definitively the cheapest or most expensive in Curaçao. Instead, they show that prices and availability vary substantially from one location to another.
Fundashon pa Konsumidó also cautions that the comparison does not take into account the quality or country of origin of the different products.
For consumers, the practical conclusion is straightforward: where possible, comparing prices can pay off. On some of the products surveyed in August, the difference between the cheapest and most expensive recorded price exceeded 100 percent, making the choice of pharmacy potentially significant for household spending.