Even if they do, advertising it as “buy one get one” (or “2 for $X.XX,” or something like that) suggests to the customers that they should buy two, and makes it more likely that they will do so.
But I feel that SDMB should give you the option to start half a thread if you only want to know about one of those things.
Or give you the next one free.
But only if you buy five
(Disclosure: I’ve spent my career in marketing in advertising)
Why do they do this?
- BOGO has generally been found to, indeed, drive stronger response from shoppers than “50% off,” even though the net savings to the consumer is identical
- Even if the store doesn’t put a “must buy two” condition on the sale, there is a proportion of consumers who are more likely to buy more on a BOGO deal than they do on a 50% off deal
tl;dr: They use BOGO because it often really does generate more sales.
My local Safeway does all combinations of buy X get Y free, only some of which are good deals. It is kind of a tax on the innumerate. For instance, they are doing 10 ears of corn for $5 which sounds like a better deal than 50 cents each. Which is in small letters in the ad or on the sign.
However they are smart enough to make the X in 2 for $X prices even. To avoid smart asses, no doubt.
One other thing to consider is that these promotions aren’t always even done to clear excess inventory, but may be explicitly planned events - the store may negotiate (or extract by force) a deeper supplier discount on the items when they buy a larger quantity - effectively passing on some of the margin impact to the supplier
FWIW, state laws can vary on BOGO:
“When you visit a Publix in Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, and the northern portions of Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina, you’re allowed to buy only one BOGO item and pay half of the price.
However, in other Publix territories, you must purchase one item at regular price in order to get the second one free; there’s no way to buy just one and pay half-price.”
from here: 4 Things to Know About Publix BOGO Sales
More details on that site, including a Publix statement on how the have to BOGO according to state laws.
It seems odd to me for the government to regulate how a business chooses to structure the pricing of its products, effectively disallowing volume discounts. What is the motivation for the legislation?
Pretty sure the laws were passed in the spirit of transparency and fairness to consumers, saying retailers shouldn’t make people buy two items for a dollar if they’re willing to sell one item for 50 cents, which they are in that BOGO scenario. Not saying that makes it a good law, but I think that was the idea.
Depends on your local store. The one I shop at only uses it as a sneaky way to buy more, if you only put one in the cart it will give you the discount. Very rarely, you need to buy two, and they will explicitly say “must buy two to get deal.”
Then there’s Costco, where BOGO is rare, but when it occurs they will inform you if you accidentally put one in.
The drug store (national chain) I go to sells those Airwick air fresheners that plug into the wall. Price is normally $4.99 for a pack of two (let’s say five dollars). Several times a year they put them on sale for buy one two-pack, and get another one for 50 percent off. Sounds like a good deal.
Except, they change the price when they go on sale. They jack the price up to $6.49 for that two-pack (let’s say $6.50). So you’re not saving that much. If you had bought them at regular price at $5.00, it would be ten bucks for two 2-packs. With the deal (which they jacked up), You’re paying $9.75 ($6.50 + $3.25).
And when the “sale” is over? The price goes back down to $4.99.
The food producer I worked for ran monthly promotions to grocery stores and distributors whereby every jar of product X sold in the month of (say) January qualified for a (say) 50¢ rebate upon proof of consumer sale. So the stores and distributors would overbuy and then do whatever they could to maximize sales of the product that month.
I’ve heard of cases where a retailer would just tell the supplier what they expect and get what they want by brute force - .e.g “We’re going to reduce product X to half price for the whole of August and you’re going to fund 60% of the margin hit. Don’t like it? Alternatively we’ll withdraw your entire range from our stores”