Very soon, I am going to add words like “sale”, “discount”, “deal”, “clearance”, etc. to the list of the most abused words in the US … right after words like “values”, “children”, and “integrity” (watch for gross misuse of the latter set of words in the upcoming political debates).
For me, the words sale or discount imply the availability of a consumer product at a price lower than it’s “regular price”. As such, it is obvious that the product should have been sold at a regular price for some amount of time, before a retailer declares a certain percentage reduction on the regular price of the product and calls it a “sale”.
For example, let us assume that a shirt (of the size I want) at a local retailer sells for $20 on most days of the year. On certain days, the retailer announces a sale, gives a 25% discount, and sells the same shirt for $15. Now this is what I call a sale.
However, I have been observing an increasing number of advertised sales that are simply useless gimmicks and just not worthy of any attention. Here are a few examples.
The Perpetual Sale
This is a kind of 24/7/365 sale - it ends on Monday night and starts again on Tuesday morning - it ends on the last day of October and starts again on the first day of November. Stuff is forever on sale. That doesn’t make any sense to me. For these perpetual sales, where is the concept of “regular price”? What is the percentage discount based on? Is it based on some arbitrary sticker price that can be easily manipulated by pasting new stickers on top of old ones? If so, then it’s stupid to call it a sale. I mean, what difference does it make to the consumers if you sell the same shirt - one day for a 50% discount and some other day for a 2% discount - if ultimately, it’s going to cost $15 to the consumer through every day of the year?
Continuing on the same note, what’s the point in selling the same shirt at a 25% discount through all days of the year? If a store needs to advertise a perpetual discount on a certain product, to me, it seems like there is a problem with the initial pricing of the product - sounds like the product is overvalued in the first place.
Another example of perpetual discount pricing is seen with pizza outlets. Every week, various pizzerias fill our mailbox with dozens of coupons announcing some new “deals”. Not surprisingly, there is nothing new with most of these coupons - every week, the same pizzas are sold for about the same price - and yet, each week it’s a “new limited time offer”.
The Urgency Sale
This follows from the “limited time offer” announcements that I mentioned above. A couple of classic examples of this type of sales are:
- “Call in the next 5 minutes and we will give you an additional 25% discount“
- “This offer is valid only if you sign this agreement right now“
- “Once in a lifetime opportunity!“
In spite of sounding stupid, such sales tactics call upon customers’ sense of urgency and usually coax them out of their money for senseless stuff (I know someone who bought a remote controlled “fart machine” for $22 under such kind of urgent persuasion).
Many television advertisements, with fake testimonials from “happy” consumers, fall in this category. These ads will run every day of the week and ask you to call in the next 5 minutes to get some additional discount. 
The Useless Sale
Great! so there is a 80% discount sale in your favorite retail store. You think happy thoughts of getting all the stuff you always wanted and rise early to get to the store before all the good stuff gets scooped up. You start looking for the XL-size t-shirts that you wanted and after wasting an hour searching for them, you realize that the 80% off is only on 5XL size fluorescent yellow t-shirts with fluorescent pink sleeves! Everything else is priced higher than usual! 
Sometimes, the product you want is available, but there is this only one singular piece that’s in stock and there are about 500 people who will be looking for it on the same day as you are. So, good luck on that.
The Mass Hysteria Sale
Shout “sale! sale! sale!” outside your car in just over a month from now, on the day after Thanksgiving, and you will know what I am talking about. In fact, you can start having fun a couple of days earlier if you hang around Best Buy or Circuit City.
These are just the examples off the top of my head… I am sure there are more out there.
Interestingly, since many advertisers consistently keep using such sale strategies, something must be obviously working for them. I wonder if we are getting the meanings of words like “sale”, “discount”, etc. incorrectly hardwired in our genes or something.
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I’m not a fan of sales for the reasons cited above, but one of the most annoying things that I saw recently was a cheese sub on sale in the supermarket. Full price is £1.60. Sale price £1.58. Oh yeay, a 2p difference. What is the bloomin’ point?
Right on. Sales are very abused nowadays. For example, NYC shops that are going out of business 24/7/365, and my own recent experience with discount coupon that’s really a bait for me to buy overpriced accessories.
Sales are overused. Nonetheless, I had one point about the perpetual sale: some retailers will have a perpetual sale on a particular type of item but just vary the item each week. For example, many electronics retailers will have a perpetual sale on DVDs but will vary the DVDs that are on sale weekly. In this case, I have no problem with a perpetual sale.
I think the term sale is just a marketing ploy when used in the way you describe. I call it a fake bargain and it’s only used to play with the customers’ psychology. I know I start to perk up when I have the chance to save half price on something, even though I can’t verify what the “normal” price is. It’s just a lame way to make a gullible customer excited enough to walk into the store and look at some things. A sale sign is never a real way to tell anyway; you just learn the store you’re going into. Big stores usually have “real sales” at various times and you can get to know at what level the bargains are. Rarely is there a sale that you just can’t pass up. It will always come back.
Good post. Three things that came to my mind:
1. I had commented on this earlier on one of your posts, but will do again. There is is category what one should call “anti-sale”. This phenomenon happens when a retailer, let’s call it Wal-Mart, decides to combine two smaller quantities item (e.g. two 6 oz Colgate toothpaste) into one big item (in this example, one 12 oz Colgate toothpaste of exactly the same chemical combination) and sells it at a price more than twice that of the smaller item and calls it “Great Savings”! I mean come-on, even after I explained the customer service rep why it is not a saving in the first place, why would they be still carrying this “sale”? That takes me to the second point:
2. The whole idea of sale is nothing but stuffing marketing fundas one learns at b-school down the throats of the gullible customers. And those, for a lack of better word, suckers fall for it every time. Otherwise how would you explain why such ’sales’ have still persisted through the ages?
3. On the topic of abused words, don’t forget to catch John Oliver’s views from the Daily Show. Progress, that poor ba$#@%. Hilarious
I agree. I get so sick of department stores having “one day only sale”, “Super Saver Weekend”, “best prices of the season Sale!”. There’s a craft store near us that always overprices stuff, it’s automatically 40% when they put it out as new stuff.
ANNOYING! that’s all I can say!
Great post. So funny and so true.
Enjoyable read.
When I was about thirteen, I wandered into the new Wal-Mart and spotted a “sale” on an adorable shirt. Interested to see just what a great deal I was getting, I peeled back the sale sticker to see the original price. It was two dollars LOWER than the sale price was.
When I asked the CSR when the sale would be ending so that I could come back and buy the shirt, she glared at me and sneeringly informed me that I wasn’t supposed to look at the stickers underneath the sales tags.
After that, my friends and I joked about Wal-Mart’s prices falling up (this was in the “look out for falling prices” days), and the same skepticism regarding sales has followed me to this day.
“For example, NYC shops that are going out of business 24/7/365″
I remember walking by a store in Manhattan - I live about an hour North - and see a sign “Out of business sale”. Next weekend - still same sale. A week later “Great news - we are staying!”. And so on. Nothing interesting inside, just some junk for tourists.
Better stores have real sales at various times of the year or for items they couldn’t sell at higher price. A local Ann Taylor regularly reduces prices on items that they cannot sell at higher price. So they always have “70% off” sign, but it’s always different things. They seem to keep things for a few weeks at one price, then reduce if it is not sold. Still not sold - more reductions. Some items they keep at the same price for longer time, some reduce very quickly. End of season - everything at a fraction of the first price. They also have a policy that if you buy something and it goes on sale within two weeks, they’ll refund you the difference. I’ve seen some things I liked disappear, but I also got some really good deals there.
SYMS has an interesting model. They clearly put cost and date on labels - that much now, that much after that date, that much after that date, etc. So you have a choice - buy now for more or wait and hope nobody buys it.
What’s sad (to me anyway) is that these “sales” are still around because people continue to go crazy for them. If people would simply remember that things were marked up pre-sale or that there were billions of dollars being spent to ensure you were going to buy more than the Get-Them-In-The-Store item, I would hope (yet doubt) they might be less inclined to fall for the stunts.
Well, in India you can surely find out the perpetual sale and the urgency sale. Even I have observed the same, I have made it a point never to enter into such a shop and not to buy even if i enter.
In your shoes, MoneyDummy, I probably would have told the CSR “Whatever” (or, if I was bolder “What a load of crap/bullocks/bs/etc”) and then would have taken the item to the checkout, removing the sale tag on my way. If they tried to charge me more than the original tag, I would demand that I get the price as listed on the tag.
So true. I especially love those late night infomercials that keep running for years and always end with “if you call with the next 5 minutes and tell us your name is Alfred E. Newman, you will get a free set of useless stuff with your order”.
BTW, what’s wrong with a remote control fart machine?
When I worked in retail I noticed some good “sales” — sometimes items would go on “sale” for the *same* price as it was normally. Once I noticed something went on “sale” for *more* than it cost normally! It makes you wonder, what do retail companies think “sale” means?
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