shopping
when is a sale not a sale?
WSA adsense code -->On my way home from work is a small branch of a very large supermarket chain. I often pop in to pick up things that I need and to see if there are any good reduced items. I was looking at the items that had been marked down for a quick sale, when I noticed a ploughmans sub that had a very prominent reduced sticker - its new price was £1.58. Can you guess what the full price was?
I’ll put you out of your misery. The original price of the sandwich was £1.60. Yes, that’s right, the mighty supermarket had reduced the price by 2p. As far as I’m concerned that’s not a price reduction to get the stuff off the shelves, it’s purely a marketing ploy.
What is the most ridiculous sale that you’ve seen?
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Discussion
14 comments for “when is a sale not a sale?”
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© 2007 plonkee money. 
Marketers are evil sometimes! But unfortunately it WORKS half the time!! I’ve seen things marked $3.99 regular price one day and the next day “SALE: 2 for $7.99!”
Yes, I’ll certainly agree that it’s not a sale if the price is marked up.
Pretty much any of the so called sales at higher end department stores like Nordstrom. That pricey designer T-shirt has now dropped to an affordable $40….this is a T shirt mind you..
-Raymond
Ha! Yesterday on Amazon, I noticed a Burt’s Bees product had a slashed price of $13.00 - sale price: $12.99.
How is this for absurd: Store raise prices on items and then have sales on them, bringing them back to original price 9if not slightly higher). Big signs stating sales causes people to buy the very same thing they wouldn’t when it was “not on sale”.
I’ve seen things on sale for $0.00 off - no joke. The original price was listed, the sale of $0.00 off leading to the original post. I think I grabbed one of the tags to put on Leno.
How about the one that marked down overpriced stuff, so that it’s a less overpriced stuff on sale?
A couple of weeks ago they had a big sign by the licorice on the candy aisle advertising a sale price of $1.25. Now it’s back to full price at $1.34.
Well… sometimes when an item is reduced and also on buy one get one free, after it is reduced the BOGOF no longer applies. So sometimes you see reduced to clear things that are more than half price but you would have been cheaper to buy the non reduced item.
Did you know that sometimes stores will intentionally “go out of business” since there’s so much money to be made in liquidation sales?
Again, the prices aren’t reduced that much, if at all. It’s just a ploy to get floods of people through the store to buy merchandise.
There are actually companies that specialize in helping retail stores conduct liquidation sales.
@Ryan Healy:
Wow, I had no idea. I think I might avoid liquidation sales in future.
We have the boxing day sale in Melbourne every year, and the whole city goes crazy about it. What I find disturbing is that some of the major department stores advertise extremely cheap goods as sale items, but leaves their regular stock at full price!. It is all smoke and mirrors at that time of the year here.