I'm usually very skeptical of establishments that market and advertise big discounts, and I try to dissect as much as I can unless I'm feeling more indulgent or impulsive as usual, but I think for the most part I'm able to tell when a discount is legitimately giving me savings or if it's just giving me an illusion of it. For example, from time to time some of our fast food restaurants here give out coupons for individual items but the savings I'd get really aren't that much and from the small amount I would be keeping I could have gotten a lot more out of the transaction. I see this a lot in online retail stores as well wherein they raise their retail prices and slash it to make it seem like you're getting a bargain. Do you consider yourself able to tell when a promotion is genuinely worth it? Do you have any special methods you employ to better investigate if it really is?
I have a special method, I keep an eye on the prices of things I want and avoid buying any impulse items at all. When I shop for food for example I know that I can get a healthy loaf of bred for about $2.75 so when the store offers a $6 for two loaves deal I know it's a false deal. I also compare prices before buying anything unexpected, like parts for car repairs. I brought my car in to have a driver side window assembly replaced and the mechanic wanted $172.00 for the assembly alone, that was near his cost from the dealership. I looked around and found one on Amazon for $98.00 and then another on eBay, from a store going out of business, for $47.00. Needless to say I bought the $47 unit and saved myself $125 without much effort. If you think about it, I got paid $125 for spending 20 minutes shopping around for a better price, never pay for something unless you've compared prices! I probably could have done even better than the $47 in hindsight if I had gone down and haggled the price at a junk yard and bought a used unit from them. Perhaps I could have gotten an entire door for $50 and had extra spare parts left over, who knows.
The government and watchdog committees are clamping down on these bogus offers. In the UK they must state if the product was offered at a lower price in the last 28 days. In supermarkets, the 3 for 2 and buy 1 get 1 half price confuse people and some stores have been caught putting up the price when they make these offers. Generally if you know the price of things you know if it's a bargain, but most people don't have time to shop around and that's when they get caught out.
Slapping the "label" discount, deceptive though it might be will drive up sales. I've seen in some stores products [where it was claimed] are being sold at discounted prices but if you were to look at their prices you'd realize that there's no discount offered on the product. That's why it's always advisable to look around the net, find out the real price of the product so that when you go out to buy it you'll know if the discount is genuine or not.
There are illusion discounts out there, the internet is full of them, or perhaps even real stores. I would examine it because sometimes it might seem like an insane discount, but then you'd look at shipping and it's insanely high and it barely makes a difference than its original price. To spot a genuine discount is when you realize an item is being sold in a huge amount of stocks so that prices go down, due to people buying it a lot, but also examining both the product online, and it also has to be reasonable, not too low, like insanely low, eventhough you can find one of these but only at auctions, I would advise all to be careful on such matters.
I hate it when stores employ very clever marketing strategies to fool us into thinking we're getting a bargain when we're clearly not!!! I've caught them out on many occasions. I know the general prices of most items I get, and will always gauge whatever "offers" they have going, against those prices. Also, i always check the figures when they say get X amount extra free, or get two or three for a lesser price, because it doesn't always work out cheaper LOL
