Do you like to hunt for sales or rather just buy it when you see it and not have to worry about anything else?
It’s hard to resist a good sale. We all get excited when we see something we like and it's accompanied by a red sticker that reads SALE.
Now we may see the tag even read 40 or 50 percent off and we want to grab it right away before the price goes back to normal or it's gone completely.
Retailers know that.
But is that “sale” price really a special, reduced price?
Not always, according to a study, it was concluded that some well-known stores seemed to have perpetual sales on certain items, so the “discounted” price is really the regular price (Consumers’ Checkbook).
Did you know that 97% of retailers cite discounting as their top pricing strategy?
Some other businesses follow a so-called 'Discount Pricing Strategy' which allows them to sell low-priced products in higher volumes.
Larger retailers are able to demand price discounts from their suppliers (wholesalers) and make a discount pricing strategy effective as they buy in bulk. For small businesses like us, it is obviously impossible to compete with these retailers.
While we could gain customers, that make decisions on price alone, other customers may choose competitor products because of perceived quality. Low prices may drive sales for a limited time, but do not build customer loyalty.
Now here is the challenge for all of us consumers: It’s difficult to value a product or service nowadays. Determining whether a price is a good deal is first of all time-consuming but it involves researching prices at other retailers as well as comparing product attributes and pricing of rival products. That's why we consumers use reference prices as a shortcut — but did you know that 'reference prices' are embellished as well?
Lots of the products have original prices that were never selling prices.
All an illusion to affect the consumer behavior by making discounts look larger than they really are. Just to create a perception of value, since consumers view products with higher original prices as more desirable. This means that you might subconsciously make purchasing decisions based on false information. The feeling of saving more money or getting an awesome deal can be persuasive.
It's not a new or unique phenomenon and it happens to all of us. They know what they are doing trust us. It just usually goes unnoticed! Until now that we unraveled their secrets for some of you.
But here is what you CAN do:
Don't trust the listed original prices.
Research products prior to purchasing to understand their true original price. If a product appears to be discounted by 30%, don’t necessarily take it at face value. Before swiping your card make sure you understand what you are buying and what it has actually sold for. You can also check product tags for UPC codes or product IDs to verify that you are getting the product you intended to purchase.
Before you make a purchase, ask yourself what you think a product is worth.
Try to guess what the product seems to be worth before even looking at the price. By making your own assessment of what a product is worth to you, you’ll rely less on the perceived value derived from the listed original price.
When shopping online, make sure you review the retailers’ shipping and return policies.
Make sure that the quality of the product is exactly what you were expecting. If the sweater doesn’t seem like it was originally worth $150, then there’s a chance that it wasn’t.
Be sure to read the fine print on ads.
Especially around sales like Black Friday, the fine print often includes date ranges, excluded items, whether the offer is only good in-store or online, purchase limits, and warranty limits. The last thing you want is to make a purchase and find you overpaid.
When shopping with Laurel Reath you can rest assured that we don't price our items to accommodate discounted pricing.
Especially for the holidays we only want to make as much as there is demand for.
And why can we do that? Because we make our products by hand and per order and we provide a transparent shopping experience.
That's why you should take advantage of our Holiday PREORDER system - Handmade and ready to ship within 5 - 7 business days directly to your door!
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