Beating The Sale Mentality
September 20th 2006 05:48
This is my how-to post for Darren Rowse's latest "Group Writing Project"
Everywhere you drive, signs beckon you to come to big sales. Walk through the mall and the word “Sale” is displayed prominently in dozens of stores. With so many stores holding sales, is the shopping field rife with bargains?
Not exactly. As I wrote in my first post, sometimes you’ll be offered an item on sale for far more than a competitor’s charging for it, so you’re not getting a bargain, you’re just getting overcharged less.
Sale items may simply be on sale because no one wants them. If you’re a big fan of a Holiday, the best time to stock up on supplies is the week after the holiday. If an item’s not popular, but you like it and can get it at a steal, it might not be a bargain to me, but it is for you. If you buy something that’s on sale because it’s on sale without regard to whether you’ll use it, you’ve not gotten a bargain; you just made an impulse buy for something you’ll end up giving to the thrift store or putting in a yard sale.
The other reason that stores have sales is because they want you to buy non-sale items while you’re there. If you have trouble sticking to a list, stores having sales can be an incredibly dangerous place, because before you know it, in addition to the sale items you came to buy, you’ve bought several other items that you could have gotten at a lower price elsewhere.
Even if you stick to sale items, watch your gas mileage. If you’re driving an additional 20 miles and visiting numerous stores you wouldn’t go to normally, you have to ask, “am I really getting a bargain?”
Here’s an example. Say you save $20 on groceries by driving to eight different grocery stores and spending 3 additional hours shopping and commuting. If you went through a couple extra gallons of gas, that would leave you with $14 in savings, but let’s not forget the time factor. You spent 3 hours to save $14, a net savings of $4.67 an hour. Your time is money and if your goal is saving money or making money, there are numerous ways you could have done better than $4.67 an hour.
The best bet: find stores that consistently give you a good deal and do your shopping there. You’ll be less likely to end up paying too much when you need to purchase additional items, as they provide good values on all that they sell. As you get to know the stores you’re using, you get an idea of how they price items and can let one value store compete with another. At that point, you, and not the marketing manager for a big grocery store, will be in charge of your shopping habits.
Everywhere you drive, signs beckon you to come to big sales. Walk through the mall and the word “Sale” is displayed prominently in dozens of stores. With so many stores holding sales, is the shopping field rife with bargains?
Not exactly. As I wrote in my first post, sometimes you’ll be offered an item on sale for far more than a competitor’s charging for it, so you’re not getting a bargain, you’re just getting overcharged less.
Sale items may simply be on sale because no one wants them. If you’re a big fan of a Holiday, the best time to stock up on supplies is the week after the holiday. If an item’s not popular, but you like it and can get it at a steal, it might not be a bargain to me, but it is for you. If you buy something that’s on sale because it’s on sale without regard to whether you’ll use it, you’ve not gotten a bargain; you just made an impulse buy for something you’ll end up giving to the thrift store or putting in a yard sale.
The other reason that stores have sales is because they want you to buy non-sale items while you’re there. If you have trouble sticking to a list, stores having sales can be an incredibly dangerous place, because before you know it, in addition to the sale items you came to buy, you’ve bought several other items that you could have gotten at a lower price elsewhere.
Even if you stick to sale items, watch your gas mileage. If you’re driving an additional 20 miles and visiting numerous stores you wouldn’t go to normally, you have to ask, “am I really getting a bargain?”
Here’s an example. Say you save $20 on groceries by driving to eight different grocery stores and spending 3 additional hours shopping and commuting. If you went through a couple extra gallons of gas, that would leave you with $14 in savings, but let’s not forget the time factor. You spent 3 hours to save $14, a net savings of $4.67 an hour. Your time is money and if your goal is saving money or making money, there are numerous ways you could have done better than $4.67 an hour.
The best bet: find stores that consistently give you a good deal and do your shopping there. You’ll be less likely to end up paying too much when you need to purchase additional items, as they provide good values on all that they sell. As you get to know the stores you’re using, you get an idea of how they price items and can let one value store compete with another. At that point, you, and not the marketing manager for a big grocery store, will be in charge of your shopping habits.
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