We have furniture stores here that mark things up before putting them on sale. It’s a big impressive number (40% off or something), but if you mark the price up 30% first it’s not so big.
There’s a furniture store out here that has a “GOING OUT OF BUSINESS! TOTAL LIQUIDATION!!!” sale at least once a year. The store is still in business as of this posting. :dubious:
Well, this thread has been very eye-opening for me. I honestly had no idea department stores did that. Knowing this helps me avoid the temptation to buy stuff.
I was thinking about this thread when I went into my local Sears yesterday and saw they were having a, “STORE CLOSING SALE! 50% OFF EVERYTHING IN THE STORE!*” As you may have guessed, it was not, indeed, 50% off everything in the store. I bought a few cheap items - I’ll be back when they start to get serious about clearing out everything in the store.
*Various disclaimers, conditions, and outright lies, I believe.
Some of Kohl’s discount coupons do require the use of a Kohl’s credit card, but you can immediately pay the balance in cash/check right there at the cash register. No waiting until the invoice comes in the mail. (hope I didn’t just fink out your wife!)
Another way Kohl’s sales are sneaky is when you use the “Kohl’s Cash” (if you even remember to use it and it doesn’t expire while a crumpled mess in the bottom of your purse) they deduct that first, then take off any discount coupon that you have. It’s all in the fine print, of course. The cashiers will sometimes verbally explain this at time of purchase.
For example, you are buying $20 jeans. You have $10 in Kohl’s cash, and a 30% off coupon:
$20 minus $10 = $10 x 30% off ($3) = $7 - your total amount due.
(versus: $20 x 30% off ($6) = $14 minus $10 = $4 - you wish!)
Anyway, Kohl’s ticks me off, but I still shop there on regular basis.
When I asked one clothing store about the fact that they seem to have “Closing sales” every few months or so, for the last few years without the store ever actually shutting down, they told me that “Closing” mean closing of the season. I’m surprised they don’t just keep the the sign up the whole year and just tell people closing mean locking the doors at the end of the day.
Heh - that wouldn’t surprise me too much. We’ll see if they stick around or not - I haven’t noticed Sears playing this game before, but who knows.
This phenomenon is called “anchoring” (obligatory wiki link). Cicero touched on it earlier.
In Texas, my understanding is that an item cannot be “on sale” for any more than 1/2 of the time. Hobby Lobby is the king of this–they will literally put half the entire store “on sale” for one week, then flip for the next week, ad infinitum.
We used to have a furniture liquidation store that would have a going-out-of-business sale every other year. And then they would lock the door, open the door at the other end of the building and claim they were a different company, even though all the companies were subsidies of the same holding company.
The state took them to court and won. They went elsewhere. Sometimes I really like the MN Attorney General’s office.
*All *sales are fake sales.
Not so. I have scored serious savings at real fire sales (smoke damaged goods), real going-out-of-business sales, and season-end sales. But *most *sales are fake sales.
I won’t disagree with you but here’s what my pithy little comment was supposed to mean. The purpose of a sale is to make you think you are getting something for less than what it is worth. If it were not mere psychological warfare then the price would not have to hyped as a “sale.”
In all the situations you describe, some part of the supply/demand equation has changed and the merchant is adjusting the price to maximize their profit (or minimize losses in some cases). You can get goods for less than they might be available for elsewhere, so I guess that’s a bargain, but you are still paying what it is actually worth. If the item were worth more, they would be able to charge more.
Mrs. Mustard is supposed to be “at work” right now, but I am certain she is at your home, living the other half of her double life as *your *wife.
She’s there right now, ain’t she! Ain’t she!
mmm
Worth is a very tough thing to define. But keep in mind that stores use items called “loss leaders” to draw people in the store. That term means that the items is priced so low that the retailer actually loses money on the deal. How much is that “worth” to you? To me? To the store owner? It will vary with every person.
Merriam Webster defines the version of sale we are talking about as a “selling of goods at bargain prices”. Again, what you and what I define as a bargain will be different because we have different tastes and interests. If I think I got a bargain* on something, perhaps I actually did.
*Kohl’s weekly “sales” excluded as are BBB 20% off coupons. Those are not bargains.
I forgot the other part of what was bugging me - the way “clearance price” has come to mean nothing. Taking $5 off of a $100 item is not “clearance priced.”
True enough. The only time I find a true bargain is when I value something very highly that nearly everybody else doesn’t value at all. I don’t usually find that in advertised sales, though.