With Thanksgiving approaching and Black Friday a week away, a Washington-based consumer products expert warns that retailers are “just lying” when they offer tempting sale prices.
With Thanksgiving approaching and Black Friday a week away, a Washington-based consumer products 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 that almost all of the discounts offered by most stores were not special prices or savings at all,” said Kevin Brasler, executive editor of Washington Consumers' Checkbook.
In his “Sale prices are usually fake discounts.In the report, Brasler wrote that most of the advertised markdowns are bogus.
“They show the list price or regular price, then cross it out and give a suggested discount,” Brasler said. “But they rarely, if ever, charge those list or regular prices.”
Brasler said the industry uses the term “anchor prices” and that the initial price is “just made up” before the sale price is announced to “make it seem like they're saving us a lot of money.”
In most stores, tracked items were offered at supported discounts more than half the time, Brasler said.
“And at many retailers, the fake sales never end,” Brasler said. “In 12 of the 25 companies, our customers found that more than half of the items we tracked were offered at false discounts every week or almost every week we checked.”
The bait is strong
There's a reason retailers offer “One Day Only,” “60% Off,” and “Black Friday!” Sales: They work.
“When someone tells you, ‘I’m going to offer you something for 40% off and only for a certain period of time,’ that’s very powerful,” Brasler said. “It makes you think, 'Oh, I'm saving a lot of money, I better not go shopping and talk to my spouse about whether I should even spend this money or not.'
However, he said, most of the advertised sales are not legitimate money-savers.
Brasler has some tips for getting the best prices this holiday season.
“When you shop, you need to focus not on the perceived savings, but on the actual cost of the item,” Brasler said.
This includes searching and comparing prices, he said.
“Just do a quick search online and you'll see what other retailers are selling the item for,” Brasler said. “You'll often hear, 'Oh, I can save even more by just moving my business to another store.'
The Consumers' Checkbook report says retailers are violating clear laws:
Federal Trade Commission Rules on “Legacy Price Comparisons” state that rebates are unlawful if “the previous advertised price is not in good faith but fictitious – for example, if an artificial, inflated price was set for the purpose of enabling a subsequent offer of a significant price reduction – the advertised 'bargain' is false; the buyer does not receive the extraordinary value he expects…”
Another way to track if you're getting a good price is to use a website. CamelCamelCamel — which tracks Amazon prices for certain items, Brasler said.
“Amazon doesn't always offer the lowest price, but at least CamelCamelCamel will tell you, 'OK, this is the lowest price Amazon has offered for this item in the last six months to a year,'” Brasler said. “This gives you an idea of whether the price the retailer is offering you is the lowest possible price.”
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