Discounts Aren’t Real?

Well, Christmas is in the books for another 364 days, so now what?  It is now time for the hoard of post-holiday discounts.  You know, the days of post-holiday shopping hangover that lingers for the next few weeks.  Just when you thought the stores would return to normal, here comes a whole new wave of crazed shoppers, this time sniffing out the bargains.

Recently, I discovered an article released by one of the most prominent universities in America, the study has debunked the discount façade that mesmerizes post-holiday shoppers (check it out yourself by searching for fake discount studies).  The research paper determined that corporations do extensive studies to understand price points and price allure (my words).  The purpose of these studies is to simply understand how to price products to give them added value.

Once this is accomplished, corporations give suggested prices to resellers, maximizing each of their profits.  Then in down shopping cycles (such as December 26), prices can be reduced to make them look like bargains.  So, the initial price offering is far above the cost of producing an item (remember cheap labor), and profits are juicy.   Corporations have found a way to add value to their product look higher in quality or a better discount purchase.

There are a couple of things that really piss me off here; first, we customers are continually viewed as “lab rats”, being studied to see just how high we will jump for the right piece of cheese.  Then, there is the deception of making people believe that they are getting these “great buys”, when the truth is, the product really was overpriced, to begin with.  All these studies are an effort to understand our “perceptions”, so every time you go shopping you are seeing products created out of our psyches.

I have said it before and I will say it again; we customers are nothing more than just dots on a graph.  Nothing is real anymore, so just ignore that man behind the curtain!

Talk To Ya Later

The Grumpy Old Fart Customer @2018 All Rights Reserved