Don’t Be Fooled by “Percentage Discounts” When Shopping
“40% Off” and “70% Off” gives the impression that you are getting a great deal, but that percentage of sales is just another sales trick. In many retailers, the “regular price” is a lie fabricated by the store.
When you buy something at a discounted price, you expect that discount to be real. However, since retailers can choose anything at the normal price, consumers can be tricked into buying something that is not quite the case.
That’s what BuzzFeed found out when investigating lawsuits over these discounts against 29 retailers, including JC Penney and Nordstrom. Perhaps, Kohl has the most egregious pricing policy:
Kohl’s, confronted with two suits tied to discounts, said that when it lists a “regular” or “original” price, it refers to the past or “future” price of any particular item. And it can mean this item, or it can mean “comparable.” And it could have been with Kohl, but it could have been with another seller. And after all that, perhaps the sales never came at the normal price, he notes.
Can the regular price on the tag represent the future price of the item? This is just crazy.
You may have already known or suspected these discounts were fiction, but this is another reminder that unless you buy it at its full price, you probably won’t need this item . (That is, don’t be tricked into buying things because they are “selling out.”)
Why 40% Off Doesn’t Mean What You Think | BuzzFeed