[Drivingforfun]

Did anyone manage to pick up anything good?

I managed not to buy anything this year except for a yearly whisky, this year a bottle of 15 year old single malt Highland whisky for £39.95, which I think they sell at a loss

Has anyone noticed this year more than any other that Black Friday has turned into Black November ... there's close to as much buildup as there is for Christmas itself...?

[Rolebama]

I came across a web page a while ago which had photos of pre-black friday prices. It showed how prices had been artificially inflated pre BF and how the BF prices had been marked down to original prices. Same way as ASDA's roll-back nonsense was done.

[Drivingforfun]

A website I use which is actually quite a respectable company did a site wide 20% off promotion last year and I found it quite surprising that almost all the prices had been increased, so using the 20% coupon meant you paid close to the previous price anyway!! I'd expect that from a small site or random trader but not a big company

[onestitchloose]

There's so many retailers on and offline that over the last few years have been selling products as low as they could already just in order to get the sales in, so yea I agree with the above Black Friday just isn't effective.

I personally always find it hard to buy something at a special price unless I have been actively tracking it and know honestly that it was more expensive before hand.

[Drivingforfun]

Originally Posted by onestitchloose

I personally always find it hard to buy something at a special price unless I have been actively tracking it and know honestly that it was more expensive before hand.

I have to admit I'm coming round this... I used to be one of those people who'd never buy anything (except bread and milk) unless it was on offer, thinking I'd done well, but the saying "the system is designed to make you to think you've beaten the system" comes to mind

Looking back a lot of my best purchases, whether "best" meant usefulness or value for money or whatever, were made at full price

That said if there's something I know I like but it's a well known brand for discounting, it's common sense to wait. A good example is I like shirts from Crew Clothing, they are around £60-80 but almost always on sale half price, if someone paid full they're silly. I'd not pay close to £100 for a shirt but for the price of a supermarket shirt you can't go wrong!!

[Rolebama]

When it comes to essentials, I think we are at the mercy of the sellers, but technology stuff is a completely different story. I buy all my stuff when it has been around for a year or more. By this time what I want is still viable, but obtainable at up to 50% off with a bit of haggling. This goes for home entertainment, computer components, white goods and cars. The best part is that, on occasion, it works better than the replacement models.

[olduser]

No large retail business is ever going to sell items at a loss, they aim always to be in profit.
If anyone takes a hit it will be the manufacturer or the supply chain.

What I have read, is marking down is bad because it reveals the true cost, luxury goods have to have a high price or they are no longer luxury items, most stores buy goods for sales (they are of lower quality or spec).
Price has little to do with value but what customers will pay determines price.

All the computers I have ever owned have been used, some 'refurbished' from memory the highest I have ever paid was around £70. They all worked until the operating system was no longer supported or I tried a modification too far.😒
My first, a Tandy TRS80, had been returned, it didn't power up, I overheard it being returned.
I asked the shop manager if it would be repaired, he said no it would cost more than it was worth.
But the box contained the TRS80 computer, CRT Monitor, Cassette Recorder.
In the end I paid, £20 for it, the PCB had cracked across one corner breaking the power circuit, a soldered bridge over the crack, and some epoxy job done. Tandy Basic here I come!

[Drivingforfun]

Overall the goal is to make a profit but there is a tactic called a loss leader where an item is sold at a loss to bring people in - a good example being supermarkets selling veg at Christmas for 15 pence, hoping you'll buy your turkey there as well

The point about the computers is a good one - I think sometimes it's overlooked that R&D has to be paid for. An extreme example is software, MS Office or whatever could could cost £100 but if you have a problem they'd happily replace it free of charge a hundred times over rather than refunding you because it costs them a 5 pence CD - the R&D debt needs paying off and you're worth £100 to them as a customer

[olduser]

I had a friend who worked in supermarket upper management, I gathered from him that when supermarkets made offers, it was the supplier who was being paid less not the supermarket making a lower profit.

His justification was, the supermarket had got it's overheads down as low as possible, add to this a profit to fund expansion, they added to these was the cost of the items for sale.
Any less than this meant they would go out of business.
Built into the overhead was a figure representing unsalable items, vegetables, past sell.by dates etc.
Many pre packed meats are repacked if not sold by the sell by date, there are factories that do just that!
I was told that most red meat would recover it's colour when given a sniff of Oxygen, then it was repacked in Nitrogen to kill bacteria, I don't know how many times it could go around that cycle.

Many if not all suppliers supply on the basis, if it does not sell the supplier stands
The supermarket world is a very hard nosed place.

[NMNeil]

They had a Black Friday sale on 355W solar panels, so I ordered 12 at $59 each, reduced from $85. 🤗

[Mark07]

Originally Posted by Drivingforfun

Overall the goal is to make a profit but there is a tactic called a loss leader where an item is sold at a loss to bring people in

I'm not certain, but I think the supermarkets have sold baked beans as a loss leader for a while.

I also think that supermarkets sold petrol at very low/close to zero profit when they first broke into the fuel business. I'm old enough to remember when supermarkets didn't sell fuel and Shell, Texaco, BP etc garages were in every town.

[Beelzebub]

All the supermarkets monitor their competitors' prices closely. If a "headline" item like baked beans suddenly dropped in price at Tesco, Sainsburys would probably respond, even if it meant making a loss temporarily. But they'd soon be applying pressure on their suppliers ...

[Rolebama]

One example: Many years ago I took over as manager of a motorcycle store. A particular full-face helmet was £20rrp. The last manager sold them at this price, and he would order 20 every couple of months at a cost, to us, of £280. I ordered 100 at a cost of £325. I sold them on a 'what do you think it is worth' basis. After a few weeks word got around that I would accept less than half price. The thing was that not only was I selling them hand-over-fist, but people would also buy boots, or gloves, or a jacket at the same time. I quadrupled profit on clothing within six months.

[Drivingforfun]

That's interesting @Rolebama

I think people in general vastly overvalue the purchasing power of their money when asked what something's worth, or more accurately, they underestimate how many things the RRP has to account for, but in your case seemed to make perfect sense!

[NMNeil]

Originally Posted by Beelzebub

All the supermarkets monitor their competitors' prices closely. If a "headline" item like baked beans suddenly dropped in price at Tesco, Sainsburys would probably respond, even if it meant making a loss temporarily. But they'd soon be applying pressure on their suppliers ...

Not sure if that's always true.
1 gallon of bleach at Walmart is over $7, their competitor, Farmers Market, is under $2 and it's been that way for months.
Walmart may rely on people only wanting to visit one store instead of driving around town chasing bargains.

[olduser]

Bleach Sodium Hypochlorite is diluted for domestic use, in the range 3% to 8% so it is difficult to compare prices.

We used Laundry bleach 5.25% to 6% when I was in the glass fibre industry.
It was used in the glass washing and sorting stage which was done manually.
The bleach cleaned the glass (culet), the sorting equipment, and prevented the operative getting any cuts or sores on his hands getting infected.