Negligible Discounts

Well, I think some people see the word "sale" and they go bonkers. I really hate it though when retailers jack up the price, and then knock it back down again..to say the item is on sale. It is not fair! However, it is all part of how stores make their money. They will try anything to increase the bottom line, but I guess that is capitalism in action.

 

I once came across an article that spoke about this and from what I can remember and understand the gist of it was basically defining this behavioral pattern as an exploitation or an appeal to a person's desire to win and not necessarily to save. Long story short, the amount of savings itself is not nearly as important to convey to customers as the rate they are getting as it appeals to their need to feel like they are discovering the opportunity to get the massive savings instead of actually focusing on the amount they will be spending which ultimately is the most important detail.

 

Yes! I always check to see how much I am really saving. Did you guys hear that there is a class action lawsuit against JCP because they were inflating prices and then putting them on "sale" so that people thought they were getting a good deal?

 

I don't really go gaga over small discounts, especially in items that are cheap, like below $25 , since you'll only get a small discount. But I do try to take advantage of discounts in electronic items, since it can be more substantial since they aren't really cheap, so 5% to 10% is a large discount already when buying a tv or washing machine for example.

 

I think in some cases, this could backfire on the retailers and other companies employing this tactic. I personally get irritated at seeing such small discounts, and as someone with online shops, I'd never offer less than a 10% discount. If I sold very high priced merchandise, I might consider offering 5% off, but that just seems paltry to me.

@steph84 I recall hearing about the subject, but I wasn't sure which retailer it covered. I remember a while back when JCP had new management and decided to simply price their items low, and not have sales (or something like that), and I thought it was a good idea, since it appealed to me, but I guess that didn't work out and they changed their tactic.

 

Unless I need an item within a week or less, I will generally list the prices of merchandise that I am interested in and track it over a course of a couple of weeks. This is much easier to do with the advent of Amazon and online shopping where you can put it in your cart and check its price each day. As long as I am fairly comfortable that I am getting at least 20% off its normal, regular price than I will generally purchase the item at that time.

 

That is interesting steph I don;t think I heard that, but it doesn't surprise me. Retailers have been performing these deceptive practices for years, and it is about time they started to pay the piper. Maybe if retailers see other retailers having to pay out because of these deceptive selling tactics, they will think twice before employing such methods.

 

Be VERY wary about the first two weeks of going-out-of-business sales or Black Friday clothing 'sales'. Very often, a business will increase the price of their goods so that when a 10-20% discount is given for the first two weeks of a going out of business sale, the customers are often paying the full regular retail price. On Black Friday, a 55-60% only off sale may only be, in actuality, a 40% of what passes for the regular price.

 

Wal-mart is the king of minuscule "rollbacks," Toysrus is pretty bad at sales predominantly post mark-up. Amazon's smaller sales still manage to snag my attention due to the free shipping and no immediate taxes combination.

 

Ah yes, the price rollbacks. I sometimes laugh as I look at the prices and see that there really isn't much of a discount at all. Of course with my budget these days, even a few cents of discount helps, but I would rather seem more.

I have noticed that my Savings Catcher seems to be matching more prices than it has over the past year or so, so I'm wondering if Walmart has started adding back in items they had stopped matching. Initially, they matched quite a few of the items I would regularly purchase, but then it got to where I stopped even using it for a while. I just got a little over $2 back on one receipt, which is nice, although the total of the purchases was around $140, so they're still not matching nearly as much as they did in the beginning.