Sales

Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving. On Black Friday, many retailers and stores offer extreme discounts and sales on their products. Black Friday generally spans from Friday to Monday. Minor violence has happened on Black Friday, such as assault and trampling caused by over-eager shoppers.

            Last November, I received an Office Depot catalog by mail a week before Black Friday. I scanned through it and noticed a Dell laptop selling for $450 dollars. I go to my garage and sift through old junk mail, newspapers, and letters to find the October Office Depot catalog. I see the same exact Dell laptop. The price? $450. The only difference was the November catalog had a gigantic “40% Off Black Friday Sale – Limited Availability” stamped on the cover.

            When shopping for a hard drive about a year ago, I came across at a website that offered a Seagate 500GB external hard drive for $100. The website stated that the regular price was $200, but it had a Winter Sale for 50% off. I mused over the hard drive, then planned to check in a couple of months. After a couple of months, I checked the website. The website now read “$100 Regular price: $200 Spring Sale 50% off. I checked the website again in four months and it stated that the website was having a summer sale, and that the hard drive was $100 – 50% off its original price. So apparently the website offered sales year-round: the winter sale, the spring sale, the summer sale, and the fall sale. All of the sales were 50% off. So how did the retailer make a profit?

            Are sales really discounts? Or are they descriptions used by retailers to lure buyers with “limited availability” on “one-time offers?”