When I used to shop at Wal-Mart, I could count on finding things at pretty much the same price and same discount when it hit the clearance rack when roving between stores.
However, at Target, I’m finding a large disparity. There are three stores I generally roam; usually if I find something on the clearance rack at one, chances are I’ll find a second or third at the other two.
But the price difference - oh, the price difference.
The worse was when I found a sheet set I liked on clearance. I wanted it in full and twin (I liked the color and could use it for projects after they retired from working as sheets). Found it for once price at one store, cheaper at a second, and full price at a third - not clearance at all.
The same thing happened yesterday. I’d found a jacket I liked on the rack marked down to $13.xx, and when I compared it to the same jacket at the other store, it was only marked down to $19.xx. I scanned the UPC at both stores with their built-in scanners, and the scanned price matched the sticker price.
Why? What gives? The different towns (I live in a suburbian nightmare) aren’t that different on the economic scale - most of the prices are the same or identical from store to store - until you hit the clearance rack (or miss, in some cases).
Are they trying variable pricing? I know Amazon experimented with this. They’ll offer different prices to different people. Probably as an attempt to see how many items they can sell at a given price.
The stores may be to some degree independently managed when it comes to choosing what marchandise goes on clearance and how much it is cleared out for. Not every place mandates all of its pricing from head office.
Similar to 1) it may be related to how much stock they have of a particular clearance item and how in-demand the clearance items are. Slow moving items at one particular store may get a deeper discount just so they can clear out a large inventory of overstock. Another store may only have a few and can afford to reduce the discount, since it is not quite as imperative that they get them off the floor. By the same token fast-moving items at one particular location may get a more shallow discount because people will still buy them anyway.
Pricing structures may vary from region to region. It may be policy that stores located in more affluent neighbourhoods may engender a more shallow discount on clearance marchandise simply because it’s what the market in that area will bear.
Complete WAGs though. I’ve worked for a few chain stores in my lifetime but they have always had uniform pricing structures handed down from head office.
Ex-Target drone here. Product should go on clearance the same at every store according to a percentage based on a timeline. My guess is that at some stores, they’re not as punctual about running the updates that monitor such thing, and are behind the other stores. Individual stores don’t really have discretion on pricing, although laziness might be a factor.
Unless, of course, they’ve changed their policy in the 8 or so years since I worked there, which is certainly a possibility.