When people decided they HAD to get That Thing because they were entitled to it even though they can't afford it and almost assuredly don't need it.
I hate the escalation of consumerism around the holidays.
Right. We're all standing in line for the fucking iPhone 8.
I'm trying hard not to take this comment personally and fucking failing. Because yeah, I totally feel entitled to get a good price on the one fucking thing my damned kid wants for Christmas in a year where I've have to tell him no so mutherfucking often that it's exhausting.
He wants an ipod touch. Not even a new one. Just anyone and if that means I need to dip into fucking walmart at 6pm on Thanksgiving, guess the fuck what?
Just like I walked my happy ass into Game Stop on Thanksgiving night (but it might have been early Black Friday) so I could buy him a $50 used wii.
Also, the year my FIL died, three weeks before Thanksgiving, when my husband ate up all of his time off and the idea of sitting at a thanksgiving table hurt my damned feelings, I was beyond grateful that Cracker Barrel was open.
I think I've also spoke of how working on Thanksgiving and other holidays has put Christmas presents in my kids' stockings as well.
So basically, I give no fucks on this topic. It's just a new non-religious method of pretending the world used to be a better fucking place before such and such people came and ruined it with their [insert judgeworthy ideals here]
Preach! I do feel you on this one. It reeks of obnoxious privilege to me. Your kid can get the $500 game system when it's $500 so you can sit on your high horse and be derisive to all of us who can't afford it and need to go when it's marked $150 as "consumerist." Because our kids want the same crap as your kids. Go figure.
That being said, I haven't shopped on Thanksgiving or really that much on Black Friday. I find good enough deals the rest of the year to make it worth it, but my kids haven't reached the all electronics all the time stage either.
I do think it's sad that we can't have a national holiday that allows most workers to have an actual holiday off. It would be better if stores would shut this sh@# down and just do deals Friday & Saturday...or whatever. However, my pet peeve is ABSOLUTELY people who think it is a horrific crime for stores to be open Thanksgiving but will gladly go out to eat at restaurants or run to the store on Thanksgiving Day. For me it is all or nothing. I am not going to get into emergency workers and whatnot, but your need to not have to cook on Thanksgiving or to grab a Starbucks b/c you were up all night cooking is no more righteous than another person's need to get a good deal on holiday gifts for their family. Those businesses, just like the stores in the mall, are not open during the day as a service to the customer, they're open because they are making money.
I prefer to spend my Turkey Day lounging in my pjs on the web buying shit.
And this is why the brick and mortars are opening. They know people are going to shop and deals are starting online so maybe if they open too you'll bring the whole family out to their store after turkey and they get some of your dollar too. There's no keeping up with online retail though, so I wonder if this is really a long term solution for the malls.
Is everyone just ignoring the fact that the deals are largely illusory? We posted the article at least 10 times on page 1 or 2.
Here's the full article:
The Dirty Secret of Black Friday 'Discounts'
When shoppers head out in search of Black Friday bargains this week, they won't just be going to the mall, they'll be witnessing retail theater.
Stores will be pulling out the stops on deep discounts aimed at drawing customers into stores. But retail-industry veterans acknowledge that, in many cases, those bargains will be a carefully engineered illusion.
The common assumption is that retailers stock up on goods and then mark down the ones that don't sell, taking a hit to their profits. But that isn't typically how it plays out. Instead, big retailers work backward with their suppliers to set starting prices that, after all the markdowns, will yield the profit margins they want.
The red cardigan sweater with the ruffled neck on sale for more than 40% off at $39.99 was never meant to sell at its $68 starting price. It was designed with the discount built in.
Buyers don't seem to mind. What they are after, especially in such a lackluster economy, is the feeling they got a deal. Retailers like J.C. Penney Co. who try to get out of the game get punished.
"I don't even get excited unless it's 40% off," said Lourdes Torress, a 44-year-old technical designer, as she browsed the sale racks at Macy's Inc.'s flagship store in New York on a recent afternoon.
The manufactured nature of most discounts raises questions about the wisdom of standing in line for the promotional frenzy that kicks off the holiday shopping season. It also explains how retailers have been able to ramp up the bargains without giving away the store.
The number of deals offered by 31 major department store and apparel retailers increased 63% between 2009 to 2012, and the average discount jumped to 36% from 25%, according to Savings.com, a website that tracks online coupons.
Over the same period, the gross margins of the same retailers—the difference between what they paid for goods and the price at which they sold them—were flat at 27.9%, according to FactSet. The holidays barely made a dent, with margins dipping to 27.8% in the fourth quarter of 2012 from 28% in the third quarter of that year.
"A lot of the discount is already priced into the product. That's why you see much more stable margins," said Liz Dunn, an analyst with Macquarie Equities Research.
Retailers including Best Buy Co., Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Macy's are warning this will be an unusually competitive holiday season and that all the deals could hurt margins. That can happen when chains have to fight hard for sales or get stuck with excess inventory and have to take heavier-than-planned markdowns. Stores also field loss leaders, true bargains that pinch profits but are aimed at getting customers into their stores. Most deals, however, are planned to be profitable by setting list prices well above where goods are actually expected to sell.
Retailers could run into legal trouble if they never try to sell goods at their starting price. Otherwise, there's nothing wrong with the practice. Companies can be pretty frank about how things work.
Penney, which made a disastrous attempt to move away from discounts under former Apple Inc. executive Ron Johnson, is again playing the standard discount game under new CEO Myron "Mike" Ullman. But first it has to adjust its prices.
"We must and will compete to win," Mr. Ullman said last week on a conference call with analysts. "That means initially marking up our goods to sufficient levels to protect our margins when the discount or sale is applied."
Here's how it works, according to one industry consultant describing an actual sweater sold at a major retailer. A supplier sells the sweater to a retailer for roughly $14.50. The suggested retail price is $50, which gives the retailer a roughly 70% markup. A few sweaters sell at that price, but more sell at the first markdown of $44.99, and the bulk sell at the final discount price of $21.99. That produces an average unit retail price of $28 and gives the store about a 45% gross margin on the product.
Retailers didn't always price this way. It used to be that most items were sold at full price, with a limited number of sales to clear unsold inventory. That began to change in the 1970s and 1980s, when a rash of store openings intensified competition and forced retailers to look for new ways to stand out.
Enter high-low pricing, a strategy designed to create excitement and lure shoppers by dropping prices for occasional sales. Initially, retailers practiced this strategy with restraint. At Mervyn's, a department-store chain that has since gone out of business, discounted items couldn't exceed 30% of total sales, said Mark Cohen, a professor at the Columbia Business School who worked at the company and has held other retail posts including CEO of Sears Canada Inc.
But the floodgates have opened. In a 2012 presentation, Mr. Johnson, then still Penney's CEO, said the company was selling fewer than one out of every 500 items at full price. Customers were receiving an average discount of 60%, up from 38% a decade earlier. The twist is they weren't saving more. In fact, the average price paid by customers stayed about the same over that period. What changed was the initial price, which increased by 33%.
"The silliness of it all is that the original price from which the discount is computed is often specious to begin with, because items hardly ever sell at that price, which makes the discount less legitimate," Columbia's Mr. Cohen said.
The rise of e-commerce has made it possible to track pricing on the Web and see how much time products spend at their list prices. Amazon.com Inc. is featuring a Samsung 60-inch HDTV in its 2013 Holiday Gift Guide. The TV is selling at a 45% discount to its list price of $1,799.99. But, according to Decide.com, a price-tracking firm owned by eBay Inc., the TV hasn't sold for anywhere near the list price in months. The most it has sold for in the past eight months is $1,297.85, according to Decide.com. As recently as October, it was priced at $997.99, about the same as its current sale price.
An Amazon spokeswoman said that "showing the most 'recent' price can be somewhat arbitrary and could be confusing to our customers," since the retailer changes prices so frequently in an effort to provide the best deals.
Another tactic involves raising selling prices ahead of the holidays before the discounts kick in. In an analysis for The Wall Street Journal, price-tracking firm Market Track LLC looked at the online price fluctuations of 1,743 products in November 2012. Prices climbed an average of 8% in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving for 366, or about a fifth, of the products; the items were then discounted on Black Friday. Toys and tools had the biggest pre-Black Friday price increases—about 23%.
Mr. Johnson lost his job after he abandoned the discount system abruptly in favor of everyday low prices and sales plunged. But retail executives said he hit on an important insight, that prices had lost their integrity.
Retailers are supposed to offer items at regular prices "for a reasonably substantial period of time" before marking them down, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
Cynthia Spann is suing Penney over what she says are phantom discounts. She bought three blouses at 40% off the regular price of $30 in March 2011, according to her complaint. But instead of $30, the prevailing price for the blouses in the three months preceding her purchase was $17.99—exactly the same as the sale price she paid, the lawsuit alleges. Ms. Spann said in the complaint that she wouldn't have bought the blouses if she had known the discount wasn't real.
Through her lawyer, Ms. Spann declined to be interviewed.
A spokeswoman for Penney declined to comment on the litigation, but said the retailer's policy is to sell all items at their original price for a reasonable period of time before putting them on sale.
Similar cases are pending against Kohl's Corp. and Jos A. Bank Clothiers Inc. A Kohl's spokeswoman didn't reply to requests for comment. In its most recent quarterly filing, the company said the legal proceedings it faces likely won't have a material effect. A Jos A. Bank spokesman declined to comment on the pending litigation or the company's pricing strategy, but said two other lawsuits making similar claims were dismissed earlier this year.
Retailers, having trained customers to shop for deals, are stuck with the strategy for now. Macy's tried to cut back on coupons in 2007.
"Customers stopped shopping," said Chief Executive Terry Lundgren, "so we knew that was a bad idea."
Right. We're all standing in line for the fucking iPhone 8.
I'm trying hard not to take this comment personally and fucking failing. Because yeah, I totally feel entitled to get a good price on the one fucking thing my damned kid wants for Christmas in a year where I've have to tell him no so mutherfucking often that it's exhausting.
He wants an ipod touch. Not even a new one. Just anyone and if that means I need to dip into fucking walmart at 6pm on Thanksgiving, guess the fuck what?
Just like I walked my happy ass into Game Stop on Thanksgiving night (but it might have been early Black Friday) so I could buy him a $50 used wii.
Also, the year my FIL died, three weeks before Thanksgiving, when my husband ate up all of his time off and the idea of sitting at a thanksgiving table hurt my damned feelings, I was beyond grateful that Cracker Barrel was open.
I think I've also spoke of how working on Thanksgiving and other holidays has put Christmas presents in my kids' stockings as well.
So basically, I give no fucks on this topic. It's just a new non-religious method of pretending the world used to be a better fucking place before such and such people came and ruined it with their [insert judgeworthy ideals here]
Preach! I do feel you on this one. It reeks of obnoxious privilege to me. Your kid can get the $500 game system when it's $500 so you can sit on your high horse and be derisive to all of us who can't afford it and need to go when it's marked $150 as "consumerist." Because our kids want the same crap as your kids. Go figure.
That being said, I haven't shopped on Thanksgiving or really that much on Black Friday. I find good enough deals the rest of the year to make it worth it, but my kids haven't reached the all electronics all the time stage either.
I do think it's sad that we can't have a national holiday that allows most workers to have an actual holiday off. It would be better if stores would shut this sh@# down and just do deals Friday & Saturday...or whatever. However, my pet peeve is ABSOLUTELY people who think it is a horrific crime for stores to be open Thanksgiving but will gladly go out to eat at restaurants or run to the store on Thanksgiving Day. For me it is all or nothing. I am not going to get into emergency workers and whatnot, but your need to not have to cook on Thanksgiving or to grab a Starbucks b/c you were up all night cooking is no more righteous than another person's need to get a good deal on holiday gifts for their family. Those businesses, just like the stores in the mall, are not open during the day as a service to the customer, they're open because they are making money.
Is everyone just ignoring the fact that the deals are largely illusory? We posted the article at least 10 times on page 1 or 2.
I don't think we're ignoring it so much as acknowledging that it's not likely to go away anytime soon. So to that end, I'd rather see ways that we can work around it, and from the sounds of things some stores are doing that. The pendulum eventually swings the other way.
Right. We're all standing in line for the fucking iPhone 8.
I'm trying hard not to take this comment personally and fucking failing. Because yeah, I totally feel entitled to get a good price on the one fucking thing my damned kid wants for Christmas in a year where I've have to tell him no so mutherfucking often that it's exhausting.
He wants an ipod touch. Not even a new one. Just anyone and if that means I need to dip into fucking walmart at 6pm on Thanksgiving, guess the fuck what?
Just like I walked my happy ass into Game Stop on Thanksgiving night (but it might have been early Black Friday) so I could buy him a $50 used wii.
Also, the year my FIL died, three weeks before Thanksgiving, when my husband ate up all of his time off and the idea of sitting at a thanksgiving table hurt my damned feelings, I was beyond grateful that Cracker Barrel was open.
I think I've also spoke of how working on Thanksgiving and other holidays has put Christmas presents in my kids' stockings as well.
So basically, I give no fucks on this topic. It's just a new non-religious method of pretending the world used to be a better fucking place before such and such people came and ruined it with their [insert judgeworthy ideals here]
Preach! I do feel you on this one. It reeks of obnoxious privilege to me. Your kid can get the $500 game system when it's $500 so you can sit on your high horse and be derisive to all of us who can't afford it and need to go when it's marked $150 as "consumerist." Because our kids want the same crap as your kids. Go figure.
I don't discuss my finances on these boards, but "obnoxious privilege" is just about the exact opposite from my position.
Is everyone just ignoring the fact that the deals are largely illusory? We posted the article at least 10 times on page 1 or 2.
I don't think we're ignoring it so much as acknowledging that it's not likely to go away anytime soon. So to that end, I'd rather see ways that we can work around it, and from the sounds of things some stores are doing that. The pendulum eventually swings the other way.
Well the people saying "but I want to buy the same thing for my kid that I can't afford that you are buying for yours" are ignoring them. Aka readyin07 above.
There's some article floating out there that lists the 5 things that are sold on Black Friday that are an actual deal. Everything else is a fake deal. I can't find the article.
That article deals with whether or not the full price as listed on the tag was ever a price one paid. It also discusses how retailers artificially raise the price over the course of the year so they can 'slash' prices at the Christmas season.
It does not address whether or not one can buy a similar product at the price it's offered on Black Friday or Thanksgiving at some other point in the holiday season.
So yes, it's a shitty game. But it's still likely to be the lowest price I'm going to pay for that item in the last three to six months. I suppose then you're suggesting that I buy these items earlier in the year . . . items that are Christmas presents? Okay then.
That article deals with whether or not the full price as listed on the tag was ever a price one paid. It also discusses how retailers artificially raise the price over the course of the year so they can 'slash' prices at the Christmas season.
It does not address whether or not one can buy a similar product at the price it's offered on Black Friday or Thanksgiving at some other point in the holiday season.
So yes, it's a shitty game. But it's still likely to be the lowest price I'm going to pay for that item in the last three to six months. I suppose then you're suggesting that I buy these items earlier in the year . . . items that are Christmas presents? Okay then.
There are a million articles that detail how Black Friday is a scam including your scenario.
Well the people saying "but I want to buy the same thing for my kid that I can't afford that you are buying for yours" are ignoring them. Aka readyin07 above.
Just to be clear, I don't want to buy my kid the same thing other people are buying theirs. I just want to buy him the one thing he's asked for that's somewhat reasonable if I'm careful and pay attention to pricing.
But I appreciate the minority opinion that I'm not able to tell what the lowest price actually is or that I'm feeding into mass consumerism by playing the part of the game that gives me a chance to at least get up to bat.
I suppose then you're suggesting that I buy these items earlier in the year . . . items that are Christmas presents? Okay then.
Why is this absurd? I have two gifts for DS already.
I don't suppose it's possible for you to consider that I either don't have the money at that time, that family gives me some money to help with those costs as we get closer, or that I'm saving towards that end?
I actually sew their Christmas gifts throughout the year. I buy the specific stuff closer to Christmas.
That article deals with whether or not the full price as listed on the tag was ever a price one paid. It also discusses how retailers artificially raise the price over the course of the year so they can 'slash' prices at the Christmas season.
It does not address whether or not one can buy a similar product at the price it's offered on Black Friday or Thanksgiving at some other point in the holiday season.
So yes, it's a shitty game. But it's still likely to be the lowest price I'm going to pay for that item in the last three to six months. I suppose then you're suggesting that I buy these items earlier in the year . . . items that are Christmas presents? Okay then.
that's what I do, we are BROKE, the insane amount we have to pay OOP for DD's therapy means we have an extremely tight budget so waiting until Nov/Dec isn't an option. I shop for Christmas year round, if I see something on sale that someone on the list would like I buy it and put it in the guest closet which is wrapping and gift central. I am just about done now for this Christmas and will probably knock out the last few this weekend.
Why is this absurd? I have two gifts for DS already.
I don't suppose it's possible for you to consider that I either don't have the money at that time, that family gives me some money to help with those costs as we get closer, or that I'm saving towards that end?
I actually sew their Christmas gifts throughout the year. I buy the specific stuff closer to Christmas.
Believe it or not, I can. It simply sounded like anyone who buys Christmas gifts months out is absurd.
Right. We're all standing in line for the fucking iPhone 8.
I'm trying hard not to take this comment personally and fucking failing. Because yeah, I totally feel entitled to get a good price on the one fucking thing my damned kid wants for Christmas in a year where I've have to tell him no so mutherfucking often that it's exhausting.
He wants an ipod touch. Not even a new one. Just anyone and if that means I need to dip into fucking walmart at 6pm on Thanksgiving, guess the fuck what?
Just like I walked my happy ass into Game Stop on Thanksgiving night (but it might have been early Black Friday) so I could buy him a $50 used wii.
Also, the year my FIL died, three weeks before Thanksgiving, when my husband ate up all of his time off and the idea of sitting at a thanksgiving table hurt my damned feelings, I was beyond grateful that Cracker Barrel was open.
I think I've also spoke of how working on Thanksgiving and other holidays has put Christmas presents in my kids' stockings as well.
So basically, I give no fucks on this topic. It's just a new non-religious method of pretending the world used to be a better fucking place before such and such people came and ruined it with their [insert judgeworthy ideals here]
Preach! I do feel you on this one. It reeks of obnoxious privilege to me. Your kid can get the $500 game system when it's $500 so you can sit on your high horse and be derisive to all of us who can't afford it and need to go when it's marked $150 as "consumerist." Because our kids want the same crap as your kids. Go figure.
That being said, I haven't shopped on Thanksgiving or really that much on Black Friday. I find good enough deals the rest of the year to make it worth it, but my kids haven't reached the all electronics all the time stage either.
I do think it's sad that we can't have a national holiday that allows most workers to have an actual holiday off. It would be better if stores would shut this sh@# down and just do deals Friday & Saturday...or whatever. However, my pet peeve is ABSOLUTELY people who think it is a horrific crime for stores to be open Thanksgiving but will gladly go out to eat at restaurants or run to the store on Thanksgiving Day. For me it is all or nothing. I am not going to get into emergency workers and whatnot, but your need to not have to cook on Thanksgiving or to grab a Starbucks b/c you were up all night cooking is no more righteous than another person's need to get a good deal on holiday gifts for their family. Those businesses, just like the stores in the mall, are not open during the day as a service to the customer, they're open because they are making money.
Because it's one thing to be open and offer a deal at a normal hour and another thing to open at 3am on a holiday.
And again, yes, I try to buy my kids stuff sometimes, but if we want to go there, no, we don't all need $500 game systems or the newest iPhone12. I know plenty of people, both those who can afford it and those who can't, who choose not to buy things they don't need.
I honestly don't mean this as a dig at you because I get what you are saying, and I'm not all MM on this subject. Everyone should get to have fun stuff, and presents, and what not. But there is a limit to how much consumerism our society needs and how much push there needs to be to make us feel like we need all this stuff to be what everyone else is. I don't know where the line is exactly, but I think opening stores in the middle of the night, and "encouraging" camping out, and setting up the conditions where folks are getting trampled, has crossed it.
Look anyone dead set on Black Friday shopping should follow Farhad Manjoo on Slate because every year he breaks down the actual deals vs the scammy deals.
I don't suppose it's possible for you to consider that I either don't have the money at that time, that family gives me some money to help with those costs as we get closer, or that I'm saving towards that end?
I actually sew their Christmas gifts throughout the year. I buy the specific stuff closer to Christmas.
Believe it or not, I can. It simply sounded like anyone who buys Christmas gifts months out is absurd.
No, I didn't mean that at all. If they can, that's great. If I saw a great price on something my kid really wanted and I had the money, I would do it. But for us personally, I have to wait until closer to Christmas because my husband's warehouse gets busy with the increased demand and his paychecks are bigger.
I don't see why people who are so opposed to it don't stay home. Last year, I knew multiple people who were outraged the stores were open on Thanksgiving, but they said they had "no choice" but to shop then and the stores were "ruining their Thanksgiving" and cutting into their family time. Shop or don't shop, but don't act like the store is forcing you to go stand in line for $4 DVDs.
Some of us have family in retail and we would like to spend time with them when we stay home. HTH.
Post by stealthmom on Sept 30, 2014 14:22:14 GMT -5
Am I the only one who thinks prices are better after bf? I've gotten burned a few times buying stuff (online) on bf only to see a lower price for the same thing on cyber monday? I swore off bf after that.
I will agree with readyin07 that you can't bemoan retail being open on bf but then not think twice about going to the grocery store or whatever. I get that the consumerism of bf is gross but if you want a holiday for as many as possible you should plan ahead and minimize being a customer on that day.
Post by marriedfilingjoint on Sept 30, 2014 14:23:05 GMT -5
That shit drove me crazy when I worked at Bath and Body Works in college. "Tell every customer who walks in the door that Antibac is 3 for $10 and Daily Beauty Rituals are buy 3 get 1 free and that they can save up to $40." Me: "but that's what price they always are." Manager: "if a customer asks, tell them the promotion can end at anytime and we won't know until the day the sale ends." And that promo ran the entire 4 years I worked there, except when a better promotion was running on the same items.
Preach! I do feel you on this one. It reeks of obnoxious privilege to me. Your kid can get the $500 game system when it's $500 so you can sit on your high horse and be derisive to all of us who can't afford it and need to go when it's marked $150 as "consumerist." Because our kids want the same crap as your kids. Go figure.
Cynthia Spann is suing Penney over what she says are phantom discounts. She bought three blouses at 40% off the regular price of $30 in March 2011, according to her complaint. But instead of $30, the prevailing price for the blouses in the three months preceding her purchase was $17.99—exactly the same as the sale price she paid, the lawsuit alleges. Ms. Spann said in the complaint that she wouldn't have bought the blouses if she had known the discount wasn't real.
I don't get this. She bought them because she liked the blouses and felt the price point was right with the "sale." But the same price without a sale would not have warranted buying the item?
Post by Velar Fricative on Sept 30, 2014 14:24:12 GMT -5
As someone who knows shit about shopping and when and where the best deals are, I would ASSume that the best deals for lots of things would be in January because that's when everyone's broke. At least, that is what I am hoping for this January (that there are great sales, not that I'm broke).
I don't see why people who are so opposed to it don't stay home. Last year, I knew multiple people who were outraged the stores were open on Thanksgiving, but they said they had "no choice" but to shop then and the stores were "ruining their Thanksgiving" and cutting into their family time. Shop or don't shop, but don't act like the store is forcing you to go stand in line for $4 DVDs.
Well, at least in this discussion, the folks who are opposed to stores being open on T-Day are staying home. So...?
I don't see why people who are so opposed to it don't stay home. Last year, I knew multiple people who were outraged the stores were open on Thanksgiving, but they said they had "no choice" but to shop then and the stores were "ruining their Thanksgiving" and cutting into their family time. Shop or don't shop, but don't act like the store is forcing you to go stand in line for $4 DVDs.
I have a personal moratorium on spending money on T'giving and Christmas Eve/Christmas. We gas up the day before, check the pantry, etc to prepare and those three days we spend no money anywhere.