Don’t most retailers have coded prices? The one I work for does.
Something from the shoe industry - the model numbers of most New Balance shoes roughly corresponds to the suggested retail prices of those shoes. The further up the numbers go, like model 941, the higher the prices usually are - corresponds to a $95.00 retail price.
They may have abandoned it, but when I sold New Balance, that was the case.
Another shoe industry secret - pretty much no shoe companies regularly produce a women’s size 10.5 shoe, nor do they usually produce a men’s 12.5 or 13.5 shoe. Once you get to the upper sizes, there is less of a difference in sizing, so the next size up from a women’s size 10 is a women’s size 11.
Retail secrets - there are quite a few related to Trader Joe’s, a company that is wonderful but prides itself on a certain degree of secrecy. Most people swear that certain products sold under the Trader Joe’s labels are re-badged smaller producers’ products.
This is incorrect. I sell shoes at REI and I regularly receive women’s size 10.5. I can’t think of any of the shoes we’ve carried that didn’t come in a women’s 10.5.
However, I very rarely get men’s size 7 and even more rarely do I get men’s size 7.5. It’s true that half sizes generally aren’t available above 12. The only brand that I’m familiar with that sells half sizes after 12 is La Sportiva. But, not only do they sell 12.5 and 13.5, they also sell quarter sizes between the half and the whole sizes (e.g. size 12.0, 12.5, 12.5+, 13.0, 13.5, 13.5+, etc), so their sizes are actually as precise as European sizing tends to be. The interesting thing is this makes a lot of sense for a rock climbing shoe which is a big part of their business, but they carry over their precision sizing into their hikers and trail runners as well. It’s pretty cool.
Walmart used to. Items could not end in 0, 5, or 9 (no $1.45 or $3.89; 0 and 5 were for clearance items, and the 9 thing seemed to be to force us to put things at $3.88 and be at least a penny under the competition). Items under $100 were never in whole dollars; $99.98 versus $100. Items over $100 were exclusively in whole-dollar amounts, no decimals. $350 was a clearance price, $348 was a regular price, and you never saw $349. At one point, policy was that each clearance round was >= 50%, too; take 50% off, then round down to the nearest 0 or 5. If you were buying TVs and saw one model at $348 and $350, the $350 model was the best deal, a clearance on something which had originally retailed for at least $701. A $698 TV would have been clearanced to $345, then $170, $85, $40, $20, etc. as necessary.
For a while, this changed, especially after a lot of the old WM execs left, and old Target execs were brought in to “update” the company. Whole dollar amounts became popular for low-price products; $3.86 ibuprofen was bumped to $4 even. A lot of this was due to competition from dollar stores and the “dollar-type” general stores, where people value the ease of figuring out what they can afford over actually maximizing their spending power. A large number of customers will shop, see an endcap of 86 cent toothpaste, and then comment “oh, I’ll just get that at the dollar store, it’s cheaper” despite the obviously <$1 price point, or will pass by a $4.32 bottle of detergent in favor of the same bottle for $5 at Dollar General. If the price was between $10 and $100, it was far more likely to be in whole dollar amounts, especially for seasonal merchandise. 5 and 9 are still uncommon for decimal price endings, but not forbidden, and are pretty common for lower-end whole dollar amounts. Clearances are no longer 50% or greater, except in departments like softlines or toys where seasonal churn makes it necessary to force product out.
They’re easing back on the whole dollar thing; apparently, winning the hearts of dollar store shoppers didn’t offset the loss of thrifty shoppers who understand that $3.86 < $4. It’s not gone completely, though.
This is pretty uncommon now. It was common, at least in the US, back in the 70s and 80s.
What I was told at the time is it was mostly about inventory rotation. In those days most retailers did not have much, if any, automation in the store. And the US had just been through 5-10 years of rampant inflation. So HQ pushed what little automation they had down to the store via a pre-printed price sticker.
The idea was that whenever they were stocking or neatening up a shelf (“facing” in the argot), the clerks were supposed to put the oldest, lowest inventory cost items up front to be sold first.
I don’t know why (or if) I need to know this but the coded price tells me if it’s full price, sometimes if its MSRP, if its on temporary markdown, permanent markdown, or final markdown. Each price is different.
It seems to me that one of the Poundstone “Secrets” books has a section on the “Blackstone”-kinda thing.
My personal retail secret? Anything - nail polish color, perfume, Yankee Candle scent - that I love will automatically be discontinued.
UT