# Big Sale! (Must buy 4) -- why? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 14, 2018, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-sale-must-buy-4-why/816120 "2018-06-14T22:36:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2018, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-sale-must-buy-4-why/816120/41 "2018-06-16T01:16:02Z")
> [@minor7flat5](#): > > It’s the new version of ending prices with “.99” > People smugly say “but that’s so obvious I would never fall for it”…so I must be simple minded indeed since my mental “feel” for how much is in the cart is always low, thanks to those .99 prices. Feelings don’t have anything to do with it. And there’s pretty much no difference between 99 cents and $1.00. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2018, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-sale-must-buy-4-why/816120/42 "2018-06-16T01:18:18Z")
> [@Anny\_Middon](#): > > A popular grocery sale item hereabouts is a multiple item sale, where in order to get the sale price the buyer has to purchase more than one item. A typical example is soda, where (for example) you can get 4 twelve-packs for $10, but you must buy 4 to get that price – an individual twelve-pack will cost you something like $3.39. > > What’s the point? Why is the store interested in selling more items at a lower profit margin? One side point: doing it this way lets them send a message that _uh, hey, a 12-pack of Pepsi-Cola? That’s $3.39. You know, just so we’re clear: that’s how we price it, and that’s what folks pay; we think it’s worth $3.39, and people (a) agree, which is why they (b) willingly exchange $3.39 for a 12-pack of delicious Pepsi-Cola._ _Oh, and, today only: if you buy four 12-packs, you get a special discount._ ---
**Author:** ![minor7flat5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minor7flat5/32/258_2.png) [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2018, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-sale-must-buy-4-why/816120/43 "2018-06-16T03:19:52Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > Feelings don’t have anything to do with it. And there’s pretty much no difference between 99 cents and $1.00. And that’s why we are different people. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2018, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-sale-must-buy-4-why/816120/44 "2018-06-16T04:55:03Z")
> [@Hampshire](#): > > It’s two micro-economics principles working in unison. > Economies of scale and price elastcity of demand. > > Economies of scale is bascially the principle that the more of item x you can produce in one run, the cost of each item x goes down. A lot of production costs remain constant no matter how many you produce. If the cost of monthly rent of a factory is factored into an item cost that monthly rent doesn’t change if you produce 1,000 items or 50,000 items. > > So why not always run at max capacity? Becauase the demand isn’t there (not enough people to buy all the inventory). So how do you increase demand? > > Price elasticity of demand. You lower the price, which increases the demand. But you still need to move all that inventory. So you make the sale price contingent on a larger quantity. I doubt these sales do all that much to affect Coke’s production volume. And making the sale price contingent on a larger purchase does not explain the cases mentioned where though the product is advertised as 4 for $10, the unit price is $2.50. This is actually a case of marketing and behavioral economics. How many people, seeing the 4 mentioned in the ad, are anchored to 4 as the amount they should buy even though they don’t save anything by doing so? (There are lots of 10 for something sales also, same business.) Safeway varies the deals all the time, no doubt doing experiments to see which drive the most volume. My daughter, who is a professor of marketing and who works in this area, says that grocery chains have lots of experts doing exactly this. If you pay careful attention to sales, which I do, you will also notice that they go in cycles, and if you buy wisely and know what is cheap you can mostly buy only at discount. The sales happen way too frequently to be explained by manufacturing issues. There are produce based products where you can take advantage of sales as they get rid of old product before a new harvest, but soda isn’t in this category. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2018, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-sale-must-buy-4-why/816120/45 "2018-06-16T04:58:32Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > Feelings don’t have anything to do with it. And there’s pretty much no difference between 99 cents and $1.00. There is hardly no difference, true, but feelings have everything to do with it. Dan Ariely’s book tells of an experiment at MIT. They sold tootsie rolls for 1 cent, and a better candy for some slightly higher price. The better candy outsold the Tootsie Rolls. Then they gave the Tootsie Rolls out free (I think limiting the number) and people wanted them. Only a 1 cent price decrease, but all so important. People are not rational about this stuff. It is how we are made. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2018, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-sale-must-buy-4-why/816120/46 "2018-06-16T05:08:11Z")
> [@Anny\_Middon](#): > > Another question I wanted to ask in my original post but forgot is, why 4? I never see a sale where you must buy 3 or 5 – it’s always 4 items to get the price. The store where I shopped last week, Bashas in Tucson, Arizona, had a sale on Coke and Pepsi 12 packs. The Coke 12 packs were 3 for $11 and the Pepsi 12 packs were 3 for $12, regular price for either brand was $4.99 apiece. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2018, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-sale-must-buy-4-why/816120/47 "2018-06-16T11:34:56Z")
> [@minor7flat5](#): > > And that’s why we are different people. No, there’s pretty much no difference between you. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2018, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-sale-must-buy-4-why/816120/48 "2018-06-16T13:23:58Z")
This is common with products like sodas that cost the store nothing at all to stock. The soda company stocks the shelves, possibly with a kickback to the store for the shelf space, the store doesn’t have to use it’s own storage for the product, the soda company brings it in with their trucks as needed. As long as the items are sold for a profit it doesn’t matter at all to them how much money they make on the sale of 1 or 2 or 4 or 100. And the main point of the sale is to get people into the store to shop for other items. In addition, like many businesses they want to increase their gross sales regardless of the net profit. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2018, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-sale-must-buy-4-why/816120/49 "2018-06-16T14:38:21Z")
> [@Blakeyrat](#): > > The owner of my local Haggen grocery store confirmed this with me once. He ensured me that whenever they do a “5 for $10!” you can rest assured that the items are $2 each, no matter how many you ring up. It’s just a little psychological trick. This is commonplace at my supermarket (Giant Eagle). You don’t really have to buy five avocados or two big boxes of strawberries to get the “sale” price, because it’s the same per unit no matter how many you get. They just want you to buy more because greater sales volume means more $$ in profit. ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2018, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-sale-must-buy-4-why/816120/50 "2018-06-16T15:19:52Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > This is common with products like sodas that cost the store nothing at all to stock. The soda company stocks the shelves, possibly with a kickback to the store for the shelf space, the store doesn’t have to use it’s own storage for the product, the soda company brings it in with their trucks as needed. As long as the items are sold for a profit it doesn’t matter at all to them how much money they make on the sale of 1 or 2 or 4 or 100. And the main point of the sale is to get people into the store to shop for other items. In addition, like many businesses they want to increase their gross sales regardless of the net profit. What about Big K sodas, Kroger’s own brand? Kroger is always selling its 12 packs at 4 for $10, must buy four. ---
**Author:** ![lingyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d2c977/32.png) [@lingyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lingyi)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2018, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-sale-must-buy-4-why/816120/51 "2018-06-16T23:45:46Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > If the store’s policy is that you must buy four of the item to get the discounted price, I assume it would be easy enough to program the POS system so it only charges the discounted price if it sees four of the item being rung up. The local supermarket I go to does this. The first three ring up as the full price and the fourth rings ups as the difference. If you say there were only 2 or 3 available on the shelf, the cashier will make a manual adjustment to the Buy 4 price. ---
**Author:** ![lingyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d2c977/32.png) [@lingyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lingyi)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-sale-must-buy-4-why/816120/52 "2018-06-17T00:00:11Z")
Given that the majority of the items in markets have a finite shelf life (even if it’s in years for canned items), they try to rotate their stock as quickly as possible for profit and warehouse space. Having must buy X sales helps move it quicker. My cousin used to work at the local 7Up canner/distributor and he said that production does vary during the year and they offer special pricing during the peak periods (e.g. holidays). Even soda has a finite shelf life and keeping production the same throughout the year will cause periods of over and understocking in their warehouse. 4th of July is coming up and you’ll see likely see soda prices at their lowest as it’s a time for outdoor events like picnics. ---
**Author:** ![lingyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d2c977/32.png) [@lingyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lingyi)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-sale-must-buy-4-why/816120/53 "2018-06-17T00:04:34Z")
I don’t know about other areas, but I’ve only seen the Must Buy X sales start a few years ago locally. It started with items that are commonly bought in multiples, Spam (a must have in Hawaii) and soda, but is spreading to other items lately. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-sale-must-buy-4-why/816120/54 "2018-06-17T00:09:07Z")
> [@california\_jobcase](#): > > What about Big K sodas, Kroger’s own brand? Kroger is always selling its 12 packs at 4 for $10, must buy four. I don’t anything about Big K but a possible advantage to them aside from just attracting customers to shop is that they need a minimum volume to get a favorable price from the bottler. It may not be profitable for them to have their own soda brand without hitting that price point. These are only simple profit based motives based on cost v. sales of the sodas. These sales may be based on more intricate calculations based on the sales and profit of all of their products and some relationship with particular product specials. So they may find that the gross increases whenever they have certain items for sale. It may be as simple as soda sales doing a good job getting customers to do all their shopping at Big K stores while other product specials don’t produce that effect as well. Unless they’re still using some ancient cash registers they have detailed information on the purchase totals for every visit where the customer does or does not take advantage of this special price. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-sale-must-buy-4-why/816120/55 "2018-06-17T00:25:27Z")
> [@california\_jobcase](#): > > What about Big K sodas, Kroger’s own brand? Kroger is always selling its 12 packs at 4 for $10, must buy four. I’m looking at Fry’s (our local Kroger-owned store) on my Instacart app, and they show Big K 12 packs at $2.50 apiece, regular price, no minimum purchase required. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-sale-must-buy-4-why/816120/56 "2018-06-17T01:00:52Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Not my Safeway (California.) In fact our Luckys almost always has must buy 4 to get the discount deals, while the Safeway usually advertises 4 for $10 ($2.50 each.) > > I often don’t buy at Luckys because I don’t need, don’t have room for 4 items, so this doesn’t always increase volume. > However I bet that Safgeway, at least, experiments all the time with how much more they sell at 4 for $10 instead of $2.50 each, since the deal gets varied all the time. They also collect data from the club bard. We bought diapers/baby snakcks when our grandson was staying, and they are now totally convinced we have a newborn. wow you still have a luckys ? Albertsons bought out all of ours almost 20 years ago …… But yeah soda is most often the biggest one around here for that pricing… for 3 weeks cokes been about 5-6.49 a 12 pack Then target will run a 4 for 10 deal (usually its 3/4 for 12 unless a holiday) with the tag “6.49 single price” I cant find the magazine story I read online but the person who owned the data center that kept all the store data for target had a story where target used to run very specific coupon books based on what the address bought Well one week they sent one of them to a teenage girl that was nothing but baby stuff for before during and after the pregnancy and when dad picked up the mail he read through it and took off to target threw a fit on why were they encouraging pregnancy to a minor, what kind of girl did they think she was ect (she was 16-18) threw the coupon book at the manager and took off after 20 minutes Well a couple of days later he returned to the store and apologized to the staff in the store because as he said " there were things going on in his family he wasn’t informed of at the time " the daughter was 8 weeks along target seeing an opportunity gave the family a 100$ gift card for causing the problem and continued sending the coupons …… and has target fans for life The amazing thing about it ? All they had bought was 1 bottle of some prenatal vitamins that were suggested supposedly they can tell how far along you were with each store purchase too but now they mix it up a bit so you cant tell its custom made ---
**Author:** ![lingyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d2c977/32.png) [@lingyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lingyi)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-sale-must-buy-4-why/816120/57 "2018-06-17T01:02:34Z")
Sorry for all the posts, but it just dawned on me that this is probably a response to Costco/PriceClub and Sam’s Club where buying in bulk is a must and has been proven to something (some) consumers want. Interestingly, Costco’s regular prices on some items such a soda (which are reported to be no more than 10-15% above their cost) are higher than sale prices at regular stores, meaning huge discounts must be given for sale promotions or the margins for the store very small or a loss (leader). ---
**Author:** ![lingyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d2c977/32.png) [@lingyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lingyi)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-sale-must-buy-4-why/816120/58 "2018-06-17T01:18:09Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > wow you still have a luckys ? Albertsons bought out all of ours almost 20 years ago …… > But yeah soda is most often the biggest one around here for that pricing… for 3 weeks cokes been about 5-6.49 a 12 pack Then target will run a 4 for 10 deal (usually its 3/4 for 12 unless a holiday) with the tag “6.49 single price” > I cant find the magazine story I read online but the person who owned the data center that kept all the store data for target had a story where target used to run very specific coupon books based on what the address bought > > Well one week they sent one of them to a teenage girl that was nothing but baby stuff for before during and after the pregnancy and when dad picked up the mail he read through it and took off to target threw a fit on why were they encouraging pregnancy to a minor, what kind of girl did they think she was ect (she was 16-18) threw the coupon book at the manager and took off after 20 minutes > Well a couple of days later he returned to the store and apologized to the staff in the store because as he said " there were things going on in his family he wasn’t informed of at the time " the daughter was 8 weeks along target seeing an opportunity gave the family a 100$ gift card for causing the problem and continued sending the coupons …… and has target fans for life > The amazing thing about it ? All they had bought was 1 bottle of some prenatal vitamins that were suggested > > supposedly they can tell how far along you were with each store purchase too but now they mix it up a bit so you cant tell its custom made It’s never been a secret that stores with Savings Cards and their own credit cards track and target all of your purchases. CVS (Longs in Hawaii) does this big time for their card holders. If I buy toothpaste twice within a certain time period, I’ll get a coupon for $X off toothbrushes with my receipt. If I don’t shop there for a couple of weeks, I’ll get a coupon for $X off $X to bring me back. I currently have a $10 off / $40 purchase coupon because I didn’t shop there for the past two weeks. One of the keys of course is that AFAIK, it’s only one coupon per visit. I purposely used to space out my KMart/Sears shopping for months at a time because I’d get $X coupons with no minimum purchase required. I got several hundred dollars of free items (less the previous extra dollars spent at KMart/Sears versus somewhere cheaper) this way. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-sale-must-buy-4-why/816120/59 "2018-06-17T01:20:17Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > I cant find the magazine story I read online but the person who owned the data center that kept all the store data for target had a story where target used to run very specific coupon books based on what the address bought The story is [here](https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html) in the Sunday New York Times Magazine. The story was that Target wanted to identify expectant women very early in their pregnancies, before every other company target-marketed (no pun intended) to them. So they mined their sales data from loyalty card holders and noted that women who bought unscented lotion and multivitamins were often six months later joining the baby registry or buying diapers and other newborn supplies. So loyalty cards give stores a great deal of info about individual customers. But even if you think you’re remaining anonymous by refusing loyalty cards and paying cash for everything, they still get insight from what things you buy together, and whether you respond to in-store promotions. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-sale-must-buy-4-why/816120/60 "2018-06-17T03:23:25Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > wow you still have a luckys ? Albertsons bought out all of ours almost 20 years ago …… ALL Lucky’s were rebranded as Albertson’s in 1998. Then in 2006 a couple companies bought them and split it in half. The group centered in the Bay Area decided to bring back the Lucky’s name. So they’re still around in NorCal, but changed hands a couple times since they last had the same name. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-sale-must-buy-4-why/816120.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-sale-must-buy-4-why/816120.md?page=4)