Sales!

[GTIR]

These early crimbo and New Year sales - are they really that amazing?

These "upto 80%" posters are tripe, and most of the stuff is end of season and they discount it anyways. I just saw a PC World advert, £20 of a Tom Tom. Woopdy bloody doo.

Unless you really want to queue up from 3am for the Next sales to buy a load of stuff - that either doesn't fit or you'll never wear - it's really not all that. Or go to Harrods and buy a £800 bag for £400 (more fool you) then is there a point. Just seems a whole lot of hype for not much.

Anyhoo, anyone actually got a bargain that they actually wanted and it was cheaper than normal?

[EDLT]

GTIR said:

Anyhoo, anyone actually got a bargain that they actually wanted and it was cheaper than normal?

Not me, the only things on sale is st nobody bought anyway. Chocolate is the best though, most of the supermarkets are selling big tins for half-price even though they were buy-one-get-one-free before christmas.

[Steamer]

I'd be interested to hear what bargains people have actually found in the Sales this year.

I fell for it once when I was sorting out my first house... wanted to buy TV, fridge, dishwasher all together - next to bugger all discount!

....and talk about milking the 'pre VAT price increase'

[wiffmaster]

High Street sales still don't get close to internet prices and you have to leave the house and physically shop. Which is a horrible experience at the best of times, but even worse around Christmas and New Year. Why any self respecting man would go to the sales is totally beyond me. People go to the sales and feel obligated to buy some crap, so they buy the crap, get home and realise that they don't even want the crappy crap they bought, and then go onto the internet and see that they could have got the crap they didn't really want much more cheaply and easily online...

[pugwash4x4]

sofas from multi york are definitely cheaper in the sale but i agree that most sales aren't sales at all.

[gamefreaks]

Umm...don't the shops actually buy in sub-quality tat just to flog off to stupid people in the sales?

[okgo]

I bought a £1000 TV for £400.

You lot don't know where and what you're looking at.

the deal has now passed so no point in asking specifics

[Parsnip]

Loads of crap that the shops couldn't shift earlier in the year in sizes that aren't any use unless you are a midget or a fatso.

Internet is the way to go - no dealing with the peasants and more often than not cheaper anyway.

[bigdods]

gamefreaks said:

Umm...don't the shops actually buy in sub-quality tat just to flog off to stupid people in the sales?

Yes they do. I knew someone that worked at Next last year, they told me they had to go in early on the day of the sales to remove all the normal clothes and replace with stuff that had been shipped in a few weeks before specifically for the sale.

So if you were planning to go in and get something specific that you hope will be in the sale forget it.

[EINSIGN]

okgo said:

I bought a £1000 TV for £400.

You lot don't know where and what you're looking at.

the deal has now passed so no point in asking specifics

That was probably available for £300 from the net anyway… if the sign said it was worth £5000 and you purchased for £1000 do you think you would have got a good deal?

[Angry Sheep]

bigdods said:

gamefreaks said:

Umm...don't the shops actually buy in sub-quality tat just to flog off to stupid people in the sales?

Yes they do. I knew someone that worked at Next last year, they told me they had to go in early on the day of the sales to remove all the normal clothes and replace with stuff that had been shipped in a few weeks before specifically for the sale.

So if you were planning to go in and get something specific that you hope will be in the sale forget it.

How do you explain the t-shirt I bought a couple of months ago for full price being in the sale then? I wouldn't mind if they shipped goods in especially, it's a bit annoying seeing goods you'd already bought at half the price!

I almost bought some trousers at the Next sale yesterday. That was until I put my hand in one of the pockets and pulled out a cinema ticket and receipt. Clearly someone had worn them once and taken them back! I know anything you buy might have been bought in the past and returned, but when it's that obvious I decided to pass.

I went to three different shops looking for an iPod yesterday. Of course, the decent stuff isn't actually reduced. The iPods were the same price in every shop, and the same price they were before the sales. I came home and bought one online.

[okgo]

EINSIGN said:

okgo said:

I bought a £1000 TV for £400.

You lot don't know where and what you're looking at.

the deal has now passed so no point in asking specifics

That was probably available for £300 from the net anyway… if the sign said it was worth £5000 and you purchased for £1000 do you think you would have got a good deal?

Its £999 on the same website again now.

You lot do know sales occur online don't you?

Of course not, but if I knew the panasonic shop had it north of £1k two months ago, I know I have a good deal..

[Dan_1981]

I almost bought a couple of pais of jeans earlier today - one reduced from £100 to £50 and the other from £140 to £50.

Then i thought fk it. I'm not spending £100 on jeans.

[birdcage]

It further galvanized my thoughts on the Muggles being complete planks when I saw a DFS ad offering 50% plus off and by the way "Beat the VAT increase"....

Which is what, 2%.

Spend more money you don't have on st you don't need

[okgo]

I wanted a bigger TV and knew full well they would be cheapest yesterday or today so I bought one.

If you can't help yourself from buying toss yo don't need, then yes you will get a raw deal.

[pgilc1]

wiffmaster said:

High Street sales still don't get close to internet prices and you have to leave the house and physically shop. Which is a horrible experience at the best of times, but even worse around Christmas and New Year. Why any self respecting man would go to the sales is totally beyond me. People go to the sales and feel obligated to buy some crap, so they buy the crap, get home and realise that they don't even want the crappy crap they bought, and then go onto the internet and see that they could have got the crap they didn't really want much more cheaply and easily online...

+1

I was just about to make this point.

'Sale' prices rarely better the price you can get if you do a bit of shopping around online all year round.

[Halb]

It's a con isn't it? You go in thinking everything is on sale, but it's only a group of small things they couldn't shift?

[Silver993tt]

of course it's a con. It's a total marketing paradise at this time of year that is engineered to create a stampede be it on the hight street or on the internet. Nearly all of the goods in the 'sales' now can be had at even lower prices from the end of January onwards during the dead season. That includes clothes/electronics/tvs etc. The best time to buy is when no one else is, a bit like the stock market :-)

[okgo]

Silver993tt said:

of course it's a con. It's a total marketing paradise at this time of year that is engineered to create a stampede be it on the hight street or on the internet. Nearly all of the goods in the 'sales' now can be had at even lower prices from the end of January onwards during the dead season. That includes clothes/electronics/tvs etc. The best time to buy is when no one else is, a bit like the stock market :-)

But yu risk the thing you want being sold out at that point because the general public are hungry for it come boxing day.

[paddyhasneeds]

I think some sales are genuinely decent. For example I noticed John Lewis have £120 off a £400 Zegna jacket that has been £400 on their website for a while - it's a good deal if you'd spotted it before but couldn't/wouldn't buy at that price.

Where I have a problem is when you see these (literally) screaming crazy fkers stampeding through the doors of Selfridges/Harrods simply buying stuff because it's got money off.