The sale tag

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The sale tag is like manna from heaven for my Mum. She loves a bargain and looks forward to sales at her local stores.

Like many people she suspects that some stores may put in special stock that they have shipped in to sell especially at this time amongst items that have just not sold.

Allied Carpets was often the butt of jokes for its never-ending sales, but thought of as the exception rather than the norm.

Sale basket in Shenzhen

A friend here in Shenzhen got this basket from a market here. The markets are usually full of production overruns and samples. I managed to pick up a couple of genuine North Face Basecamp duffle bags for 30 percent less than UK retail.

What I found interesting about this particular item was that it had a UK sale tag attached.It reads £29.99  £19.99 SALE.

My initial reaction was how can it be reduced if it hasn’t even reached the shopfloor yet? It was an interesting proof-point of how retailers play customers as chumps. By all means enjoy bargain hunting but don’t believe the SALE tag hype. From what my friend told me about the production overrun market; the retailer in question (Woolworths) seemed to have vastly overestimated British consumer demand for rattan laundry baskets.

My friend had the basket for a few years. I was writing this post almost a year to the day after Woolworths Group had gone into administration, closing its stores across the UK. More retailing related content here.