Hi everyone 🌟
During the holidays 🎅 discounts are everywhere. Literally. Every store, online & offline, is full of strikethrough price tags, percents on percents etc. It's so easy to fell for it and to deviate from your well-made financial plan.
The thing is most of the discounts out there are fake and not really profitable for anyone besides the stores themselves. I was working myself at one retail shop (we were selling clothes) and I can swear every single promotion was real. It makes me kind of sick of all these retail players that use discounts as a tool to manipulate its costumers.
Well, it's not that bad when you're educated 👩🎓 Many of the cases of fake sales are really similar. Here are some popular retail tactics to make you believe you're about to save some money (when you're not):
1. A discounted price sticker on the top of the price three times bigger 👺
If it's possible to try to check the original price. In many occasions, it's only a couple of cents more expensive or even the same.
2. The "recommended" price 👀
It most often refers to the upper border of the market offer, that is why this discount is actually a barometer of seller’s greed. If a price sticker shows discount from the recommended price, spend a couple of minutes to find out, what actual average market price for the product is. More than likely, you will be pleasantly surprised.
3. Discounts from a double markup 👯♂️
It works as follows: during 1 – 3 months preceding the sales, the seller gradually increases product price to be able to give a generous discount the X day with a clear conscience. What’s the result? On a good day, you will buy the product at its usual price, but you can also unwillingly give the seller a present of 30% extra.
4. An additional discount ➕
This is more of a math problem. At least the seller counts on it stating the first price reduction of 20% followed by the other 25% discount. A buyer carelessly adds together 20 + 25 and concludes that he can buy a product with a 45% discount. «Oh, but this is almost 50%! Great benefit!» — he thinks. Not a bit of it! The right formula here is
100% x (1 — 0.20) x (1 — 0.25) = balance of 60%
which means the discount amounts to only 40%.
We've made this infographic with these fake discount strategies to make it easy to remember. Please feel free to check it out.
And please share your stories with fake discounts. Are there some pattern you know from your own experience? Were there some impulsive purchases you're really sorry about lately?
Submitted December 17, 2018 at 12:29PM by savadit https://ift.tt/2ChdOR8
