The other day I was walking through Target, looking for food of course, and down the aisle with all the candy and other junk that won't help me in long wrong, caught my eye. There was a row of those large sale signs, in bright red and "SALE" in large letters. Obviously I went over to see what was there. I looked at a few things and saw that there some two-for-one deals, and some five-for-five and such, but since I only wanted one thing, my mind focused more for the flat out sales on certain things. I glanced towards somethings sour, because that was my crave at the moment, and I saw that the Chewy Sweet Tarts were on sale and I went to grab them. Now as I was checking out at the self check-out, I swiped my item and heard, "You saved 10 cents on this item." As I walked out, I thought to myself, and felt really disappointed about how Target tricked me so easily.
After that day, I decided to look at price tags more carefully. and I noticed that there is a lot of deception going on with those bright red sale tags. There was a sign that I once saw that said, "70% off" in a huge font but then in smaller font it said "On items over $50." But the focus of this is to ask you all, is ten cents even a sale? It made me quite angry that when I saw the sale sign and had high hopes that it would be a good deal, and that I would be saving money, only to see I would be saving an insignificant 10 cents.
However, I can see where people might disagree with me on this. I may be overreacting to the small amount of money I'm earning. In this case, the good old saying, "a penny saved, is a penny earned," might be a good lesson for me to learn, but I think that in this day and age, ten cents is virtually worthless. Take a moment and think about how many things today that you can go out and buy for ten cents. Can't think about much can you? The point I am trying to get across is that not every sale is exactly saving money, and that one should be careful and look at the savings or deal they are getting when buying items. Don't be deceived by those bright red sale tags.
While reading your blog, I recalled a memory in which my family and I went into this Japanese restaurant. The restaurant stated "all sushi rolls 50% off", and I had first thought to myself this was an amazing deal. However, when I looked at the menu, the rolls were about $24 each, so I would be paying about only $12. Most Japanese restaurants price sushi rolls around the $12 range, so I would not be saving much. Their whole 50% deal was very deceiving. Indeed, my brother noticed that the tuna rolls contained less than the percent of the tuna contained in a normal tuna and tuna is by far the most expensive component of a tuna roll. I definitely agree with most everything you had to say. Well done Matt!
ReplyDeleteI agree with your argument that when we buy things that are on sale, we aren't necessarily saving money. We are given the illusion that we are getting more for our buck, but the big companies are still profiting off of us. One example that comes to my mind is Target's holiday sale where if you spend $50 you'll get $10 off. This makes people want to spend more money in order to get the discount. As consumers, we love getting more for what we think is less. I personally feel into this trap. My dad and I bought an extra set of lights just so we could get the sale. We didn't necessarily need the extra set of lights, but we didn't want to miss out on the deal. I definitely believe that one of the best tactics stores use is to include the word "sale" in their ads. It seems as if every holiday there is another sale and even more money to save. We love the words "50% off" and "free." Another way they trick us is telling us that if we buy one product, then we'll get another "free" product. We love to think we're getting the best deal possible, when in reality we're just falling into the company's trap. We should be more careful when we see the word "sale" so we don't buy things just because they are marked down.
ReplyDeleteI meant fell whoops
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