Big Sale on Now (not really)

[DailyDi]

I don't understand diaper companies that are in my mailbox every day offering 20-40% off their products. I'm not talking about the occasional sale, but the same company offering a deal every single day. If they have to be constantly on sale to sell, why not just set a more reasonable price that makes you a modest profit and is attractive to customers?

[cicilove]

Daily deals would work for me if it was someone with a really large variety of sorts. If your inventory is so wide you can blow out things at all levels then sure I'll bite. Otherwise for many who just have 3-5 main features I don't really pay attention to their frequent sales because the pricing is never quite worth it as you noted. If they

[spark]

I worked in retail.

[Dirty Diaper/Maxipad Lover]

I don't understand diaper companies that are in my mailbox every day offering 20-40% off their products. I'm not talking about the occasional sale, but the same company offering a deal every single day. If they have to be constantly on sale to sell, why not just set a more reasonable price that makes you a modest profit and is attractive to customers?

This is a really basic marketing tactic that's employed by everyone from eBay sellers to big box stores like Wal-Mart and Target. It all has to do with the way people think, not with an actual "sale" in the traditional sense of the word. Product X--in this case diapers--usually goes for a bit more than what customers are willing to pay for it. The company selling product X knows this, so they put it on "sale" almost as soon as they get it in stock, usually about a week or two after having it sit at the regular price. Customers and would-be customers see the product X on sale, and buy it because it says "on sale," while the company selling product X knows full well that the "sale" price is actually the price that they expect to sell the item for. When a "real" sale is needed, the item gets marked down even more extremely or put on clearance to make room for new inventory, but the item is always on "sale."

If you don't believe that people fall for this, just look at what happened with JCPenny when they hired the guy who used to run Apple's retail stores. One of his first changes was to do what you proposed Mikey, which is to get rid of these "sales," and to lower the cost of merchandise to a realistic price point. Not only did he do this, but he actually wound up making the items in the store less expensive than they were with the perpetual "sales." The problem was that the stores idiot customers hated the change, complained about not getting "sales" anymore, and only continued to abandon the retailer while this was going on. The guy from Apple was fired and replaced with the guy who he'd previously replaced, and he subsequently restored the so-called "sales" that weren't really sales. Unsurprisingly, the customers who left while the "sales" weren't going on wound up returning to the store. As I mentioned above Wal-Mart and Target do the same thing, as do various other companies who are fully aware that people want to feel like they're saving money even if they're actually spending more as proven by what happened with JCPenny. The diaper companies with daily sales are doing the same thing that everyone else employing this technique is doing, they're listing their product at a level they don't expect it to sell at knowing full well that people will buy it as soon as it says "on sale" at the price they expect it to sell at. I can't really blame for using a tactic that works, even if it seems kind of silly to anyone who thinks about it for a moment.

[beallucanb]

The word Sale

[smokey]

I shop at 2 stores that never have "sales", how do they do it? every price tag says regular price, and our price. in the case of Winco Foods, every tag says Wal-Mart's price, Our price. They very rarely have a "sale", but they still get my business because of reliable prices.

[Fakename4me]

Most people just need to "think" they are getting a special price.

[DailyDi]

Most people just need to "think" they are getting a special price.

[Hookedondiapers]

Over here, businesses advertising a sale must state what the previous higher price is and when it was last charged

[wetdiaper222]

My mom is one of those that if something is $9.99 she says it's only nine dollars, not ten.

lol. My sister thinks the same thing. If I'm with her in the store and she's buying something and doesn't have enough. Say the item is $19.99 and she only has $19.00

[rusty pins]

I used to love (hate) those fast food commercials that said you could now get lunch if you have just one dollar!