Clearance Items on Backorder

Factual Questions
1

I just bought a suit for my son from Jos. A Bank’s clearance section. The price was very consistent with the clearance status, and it was also available in a very limited number of colors and sizes. But I then got an email from them saying it was on backorder and wouldn’t be available for a week and a half and this was confirmed by a rep when I called.

I would have thought these were inconsistent. If it’s on clearance, that means they have a remaining stock that they’re trying to unload, and if it’s on backorder that means they don’t have any stock but are willing to order more.

The only thing I can think of is that maybe their supplier is running a clearance sale on their stock.

2

Or it’s a fake “clearance” sale on some loss-leader items where they intend to make it up when you also buy shoes & ties & belts & … at full price.

3

In other words, J.A.B.'s entire business model.

4

This is my thought as well. Anytime you’re selling 3 suits for the price of 1 you have to question everything about their stock and sales.

5

My favorite was always the tourist stores in Old Towne Phoenix & Tucson selling sterling silver & turquoise Navajo jewelry. And there in the window would be a printed cardboard sign, sun-baked to almost illegibility, proudly proclaiming “All silver jewelry 50% off today.”

Yes, it was 100% true. But when today is everyday and has been since 1963, the sale sorta loses its pulling power.

Sad to say, it must work or they wouldn’t be doing it.

6

A restaurant in Austin has a sign on the wall that says “Free Beer Tomorrow”.

7

As an agency truck driver I often worked for a well known (in the UK) car parts chain. I and several others spent a week collecting goods from shops around the country and taking them to a shop that was having a closing down sale.

It was all perfectly legit, but the customers would have assumed that all that surplus stock was from that store and not unwanted goods from all the others.

Apparently they did it every time they closed a store. They were expanding at the time so building new out-of-town stores to replace the smaller city ones.

8

I once went into a furniture store which was having one of these “EVERYTHING MUST GO!!!” sales, and started negotiated with the guy over a couch. The guy said his boss wouldn’t take that low of an offer. I said what happens if he didn’t get a better offer - after all, everything must go. The guy said “well he wants for everything to go”.

But like I said, in this case it did seem like a genuine clearance sale, based on both the price ($118.80 for a wool suit) and the very limited selection of colors and sizes.

9

“Clearance Sale” is nothing more than a marketing phrase. You assume it means something specific, but it doesn’t.

10

Then it probably means they exist in a warehouse somewhere and either they’re waiting until enough are ordered to ship them out or for such a low cost item they’re shipping it by steam ship and it’ll take a while to arrive at your store.

11

Early morning movies in Naptown (Indianapolis) in the 70’s were sponsored by either “Credit Furniture” or “Big C Furniture”.

Whichever sign they had out that week, the store was “Closing - Big Savings, yadda yadda.”

It was the same store selling the same cheap crap doing a permanent “Closing Forever” sale.

I wouldn’t be surprised if they were still doing that scam today.

12

That’s why many jurisdictions now have laws that require a license or permit to hold a “going out of business sale.”

Of course that doesn’t prevent stores from advertising a

GOING OUT
for
BUSINESS SALE