With Thanksgiving approaching, and Black Friday one week away, a D.C.-based consumer expert warns retailers are “just lying to you” when offering tempting sale prices.
With Thanksgiving approaching, and Black Friday one week away, a D.C.-based consumer expert warns that when retailers offer tempting sale prices, “they’re really just lying to you.”
“Our researchers spent six months tracking prices at 25 major retailers and found pretty much all the markdowns that are offered by most stores, aren’t special prices or savings at all,” said Kevin Brasler, executive editor of Washington Consumers’ Checkbook.
In its “Sales Prices Are Usually Fake Discounts” report, Brasler wrote that most advertised markdowns are bogus.
“What they’re doing is, they’re showing a list or regular price, then crossing that out and giving a supposed discount,” Brasler said. “But, they’re rarely, if ever, charging those list or regular prices.”
Brasler said the industry term is “anchor prices,” and that an original price “is just fabricated” before a sale price is advertised in order “to make it seem like they’re saving us a lot of money.”
At most stores, Brasler said, the products that were tracked were offered at supported discounts more than half the time.
“And, at many retailers, the fake sales never end,” Brasler said. “For 12 of the 25 companies, our shoppers found more than half the items we tracked were offered at false discounts every week or almost every week we checked.”
The lure is strong
There’s a reason retailers offer “One Day Only,” “60% Off,” and “Black Friday!” sales: They work.
“When someone says to you, ‘I’m going to offer you something for 40% off and for only a certain amount of time,’ it’s very powerful,” Brasler said. “It makes you think, ‘Oh, I’m saving a bunch of money, I better not shop around, or speak to my spouse about whether even to spend this money, or not.’”
Yet, most of the advertised sales aren’t legitimate money savers, he said.
Brasler does have some tips to actually get the best prices this holiday season.
“When you’re shopping, what you need to focus on is not what the supposed savings are, but what the actual cost of the item is,” Brasler said.
That involves shopping around and comparing prices, he said.
“Just doing a quick internet search will show you what other retailers are selling that item for,” Brasler said. “You often can find ‘Oh I can save even more by just switching my business to a different store.’”
In the report, Consumers’ Checkbook said retailers are violating clear cut laws:
The Federal Trade Commission’s rules on “former price comparisons” state that discounts are illegal if the “former price being advertised is not bona fide but fictitious — for example, where an artificial, inflated price was established for the purpose of enabling the subsequent offer of a large reduction — the ‘bargain’ being advertised is a false one; the purchaser is not receiving the unusual value he expects…”
Another way to monitor whether you are getting a good price is by using a website — CamelCamelCamel — that tracks Amazon prices on particular items, Brasler said.
“Amazon doesn’t always have the lowest price, but at least CamelCamelCamel will tell you ‘OK, this is the lowest price that Amazon offered for that item over the last six months or year,’” Brasler said. “It gives you an idea as to whether or not the price you’re being offered by a retailer is the lowest possible price.”
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Neal Augenstein
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