Reporter's Query of the Week: Call Out Sales Gimmicks

[LeanneCoffman]

My tips are listed in the article I've linked to below, but in short are:

1. Avoiding service agreements (which can cost up to a third of the price of an item) and are usually offered while an item is already under manufacturer's warranty.
2. Buy one, get one 50% off sales aren't always a savings at 25% off each item. Real sales start at 30%. Plus you'll be tempted to spend more by buying two.
3. Refraining from Store Credit Cards to get a discount. With a higher interest rate than a major credit card, and the ability to upset your debt to credit ratio, these can cost you a ton more than the immediate savings on purchases.
4. Purchased membership cards- These should only be bought IF you shop there frequently already. Otherwise, the money spent to buy a membership isn't saving you anything in the long run.

http://www.mrsbankrupt.com/buyer-be-very-aware-retail-shopping-tips/

As a single mom of five, cancer survivor (with no health insurance) and self employed writer, I don't just use a few tips- I incorporate them into my daily life. Spend money without a coupon, sale, price comparision, or deal? No way!
Thank you for this opportunity!

Leanne Coffman
http://www.mrsbankrupt.com

http://www.mrsbankrupt.com/buyer-be-very-aware-retail-shopping-tips/

[lucille]

My biggest peeve is Kohl's sales. They have every item group in the store on "sale" at about 50% off every 3 weeks. So if you wait a few weeks to catch the item in the right week your paying much less. This tells me they are playing a sale game rather than reducing merchandise. The first few hour or doorbuster sales seem to follow the same logic. JcPenney uses a similar sale game. So it is more likely that the sale price is the actual price and the much higher regular price is just pure profit if someone tries to buy it any other week. I have also notice that the regular price for an item is frequently higher at Kohl's or Penney's than the regular price for a better quality similar item at Macy's. That adds to the idea that Kohl's and Penney's are artificially inflating their regular prices to make the sales look better than they are.

[dreamsandshadows]

I also agree that the regular prices at places like Pennys and other stores are inflated and that the "sale" price is the regular price. Shopping is not much fun these days everything is so expensive and made so cheaply--

[Ms. Ferret]

My complaint refers to a particular vendor of women's undergarments. My roommate and I were drawn in by the prominent "X pairs of cotton panties for X dollars" window signs, only to find out that the offer didn't apply to any of the cotton panties we found in the big front display. Or the cotton panties in the other bin in the middle of the store. Or anything but, IIRC, one drawer of ecru cotton panties in the very back of the store. My guess is that most people, having pawed through a table full of cotton underwear looking for the cute stuff, just pay up at the counter -- even when they find out that the pairs they chose weren't covered by the deal that brought them in. In our case, we just put the underwear back and haven't shopped there since.

[Ms. Ferret]

Originally Posted by Will

What are some of the most idiotic things you've heard from customers? What can customers do to make your job easier?

On the flip side of the cash register -- oh man. While I don't think customers are idiots, I do think that some people who haven't worked in retail have really weirdly unrealistic expectations of how things work in, say, a large bookstore:

"Why can't you find this for me?" -- Normally, this person has only a vague idea of what book they're asking you to look for, like "there are children in it" or "the cover is blue". Or "it's non-fiction", which would maybe help if the non-fiction section didn't make up like 75% of the store. While some booksellers have an uncanny ability to figure out what you're describing based on little-to-no helpful information, having the title/author/ISBN handy is a better bet if you run into one of the non-psychic ones.

"Whaaaaat?? I can't believe you guys are sold out of that book!" -- Usually this person has walked in on Christmas Eve and asked for some book that has suddenly become incredibly popular due to Oprah or something. Believe it, lady, we're sold out. So is the store down the street. So are all the other stores in the state, except for maybe the one out in the section of BFE where they don't have TVs. We might get a shipment in next week. Or, equally likely, corporate might respond to the huge demand by sending us three whole copies hidden in an unmarked box of random inventory. Actually, I'd bet on that latter scenario if I were you.

"Why don't you have ___ in stock?" -- This comes from the person who has asked for some obscure volume and just can't believe we don't have eight copies on hand at all times. This person, along with Mr. "Why didn't you just order more copies of <insanely in-demand bestseller>?", needs to work in an overcrowded receiving department sometime. No, we don't have an infinitely extensible stockroom. If you wanted a copy of the brand-new Harry Potter book that came out today, you should have pre-ordered one -- the signs have only been up for about six months now. I'd ask our receiver to look and see if she's got a damaged copy in our returns section somewhere if she weren't too busy trying to navigate through backstock with a shoehorn.

[Frugal Duchess]

Here are links to column I wrote about bogus sales. (It was my first weekly question.)

http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20091007/NEWS26/91007053?source=rss_localnews

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705335344/Frugal-Duchess-Bogus-sales.html?linkTrack=rss-14

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/homegarden/2010028039_frugalduchess09.html

http://www.bnd.com/yourlife/story/958762.html

Thanks for all of your tips. I will write a follow-up post featuring more suggestions. I will post the link.