[kenberg]

I avoid shopping, and I suppose what I am about to describe is something everyone knows, but I don't get it.

Yesterday I was in a store. There is an item for sale with a list price of $200. Too much. Ah, but it's on sale for $90. As near as I can tell, just about everything is on sale. Ok, I'll buy it. I take it to the clerk and say "I'll buy this". The conversation proceeds as follows:

You get a 15% discount with a coupon

I don't have a coupon

I'll give you one

OK [She didn't give me a coupon, but she did give the discount]

Will you be using your [store] credit card?

No, I don't have one, I'll pay cash.


We will give you 20% off if you get a store credit card.

I am from out of town, I am unlikely to be back.

It doesn't matter, would you like the credit card and get 20% off?

OK

Final price: $61.13 .


OK, I understand about the phony markdowns. I once worked at Al's Discount Furniture where we priced everthing up so we could mark everything down. It's the rest that I don't get.


The 15% coupon discount: OK, if they are giving 15% off, then I want it. But consider the guy who thinks $90 is too much but would buy it for, say, $80. He would buy this if he knew it was selling for $76.50, which it is with the fantasy coupon, but unless he knows of this discount he will walk right by when it is priced at $90. Seems as if this is a way to lose business, not gain business.

And of course the whole cc stuff is incomprehensible. I am prepared to hand them cash, and they will give me a 20% discount if instead I keep my cash and then they can do some paper work, bill me and wait and hope I pay.

Anyway, who cares. But it's weird.


By the way, while it is true that I was in this mall on a Monday afternoon, not their busiest time, it wasn't just not busy, it was pretty much empty. That's eighteen days before Christmas. I don't think the recession is over by a long shot.


Guess I need to go out and buy some more stuff to rescue the country.

[barmar]

Stores assume that people who get the credit card will patronize the store more. There may be some exceptions, but this is probably true enough of the time that it's a good idea to encourage people to sign up for credit cards. I'll bet the sales staff gets a bonus if they get enough customers to register.

I think the fantasy coupons is just a customer retention strategy. I've seen a similar thing in supermarkets when customers don't have their discount cards, the checkout clerk will use a generic one. Giving regular customers a hard time because they forgot their card is a good way to lose a regular; giving them a few cents off their bill is a cheap way to ensure they keep coming back.

In hard times like these, policies like these are critical to keep what little business there is.

[helene_t]

Probably Barmar's explanation is more apt in this case, but other cases of weird price structures have a different rationale.

Say the cost price of an item is 100 but we would have to sell it for at least 150 to cover our fixed costs. So we need the non-priceconscious suckers to pay some 200 while we would be willing to sell it to the price conscious for 120 if that is all they are willing to pay. More generally, we want to let each individual customer pay the max of what he is willing to pay.

So we advertise it for 200 in the shop. The non-priceconscious suckers will just pay that. The price conscious won't be scared by the 200 label since they know of several ways of getting the price down:
- Buy it on Wednesday between 16 and 17 when we have a 10% checkout discount for certain categories.
- Buy 3 pay for 2 (or even, buy one baguette toaster and you can get a tomato slicer for half the price).
- Get a loyalty card.
- Print some discount voucher from our internet site and take it to the shop.

I avoid shops that have those tricks. Some retailers, like one-person sales at the street market on saturday morning, have a regular price structure so I prefer them.

I have given up getting a mobile phone subscription, btw. Too confusing price structures. I bought a second-hand handset for 7 pounds at a garage shop and then just top up. Will do the same next time I need a new phone.

[Fluffy]

Lol I hate going shopping so much, everything I see is overpriced on my view. And I might need it, but I ain't paying that much for it! .

I am not a good citizen I guess, I prefer to keep my money for when I need it really and not spend it on things I can live without.

[hrothgar]

I'm starting to get cold calls from recruiters trying to hire me...
(something that hasn't happened in well over a year)

Feels like things are starting to turn around

[kenberg]

The fantasy coupon is different from the forgotten customer bonus card at the grcery store in this important way: At the grocery store their is a two-tier price listing. The customer knows what the bonus card price is and he can ask if the store will give that price if he has forgotten his bonus card. Some stores will use a generic card, some will ask for identifying info such as your phone number. (They want to keep track of your purchases, thus Tigress Woods could easily track her husband's purchase of condoms if she knew someone with access to the data.)

In the case I present, there was no way to know until you got to the cash register that there was a 15% reduction in price.

Locally, a large chain, Hecht's, was bought out a while back by Macy's. In its Hacht days we used to joke about the prices. There was no way to tell what the price was until you got to the cash register. It was so extreme that at times, if I was considering buying something that I thought was overpriced, I would ask the sales clerk to check on the register to see if the listed price was the real price. Often it was not. I doubt this was a good marketing strategy, and Hecht's is no more.

With regard to the credit cards, I regard the whole thing as beyond comprehension. As long as I am not called upon to bail someone out I guess it's not my business. I'll take my 20% discount and pitch the card when it arrives. Yes, I know I need to cut it into pieces.


One more thing, while I am in rant mode. When I worked at Al's Discount Furniture fifty some years ago it was expected that such a place had phony discounts. Now everyone does it. $200 on sale for $90? Do I look that stupid? I want to meet the dumb schmuck that paid $200 for it. But then I was going to pay $90 until the clerk reduced it to $61 so maybe the joke is on me.

[Lobowolf]

kenberg, on Dec 9 2009, 11:06 AM, said:

One more thing, while I am in rant mode. When I worked at Al's Discount Furniture fifty some years ago it was expected that such a place had phony discounts. Now everyone does it. $200 on sale for $90? Do I look that stupid? I want to meet the dumb schmuck that paid $200 for it. But then I was going to pay $90 until the clerk reduced it to $61 so maybe the joke is on me.

Reminds me of when I was a kid on vacation in Mexico. A lot of items in Tijuana had price tags with letters, rather than numbers. My Spanish was decent, so I asked a guy why they did that. He said the Americans liked to bargain, so if an item was $5.00, they'd have to ask, because it wasn't in numbers. So he'd tell them it was $12, and let them talk him down to $8.

[jdaming]

A lot of coupons like that are hidden away and offered as special promotions to people who are on their mailing lists and such.

I know a lot of cashiers will find these and give them to random customers in the hope that doing so will create some good will so that when they get asked about the credit card they will consent. Most cashiers (really retail employees in general) get some kind of bonus for getting a customer to get a card.

[kenberg]

Now that is an explanation that makes some sense. A bit of "customer profiling" so I am not completely sure that I approve (in fact it sounds seriously illegal), but it is an explanation I can believe. If I helped the cashier get a bonus I am fine with that. So some other poor slob pays out the full $90? Ah, the modern world of marketing!