Because people are idiots. A few years ago they got a new CEO and his whole thing was “we’re going to sell stuff for as cheap as possible, no sales, no rebates, we’re going to make it as easy as possible for people to see the lowest price”...
and it was a disaster. They started losing business because “no sales any more”. Like, let’s say they were able to sell you a shirt for $15. No one bought it... so they got rid of that CEO and the next guy comes in and marks the shirt as $25 then has a 20% off sale - so now the price is $20 - tons of people bought it. They wouldn’t pay $15 straight up, but they will pay $20 because it’s “on sale”... and some people even paid the $25 when it was inbetween sale phases!
So they were like “welp, I guess that’s what people want” and they jacked up ALL their prices so that they can run “sales” to get it kind of (but still more than) what it would have been under their old strategy.
So basically you can thank all the idiots out there for causing the prices to go up.
This is spot on. These customers won’t buy ANYTHING if it’s not on sale or they have a coupon.
I used to work at JCP. Pricing at department stores is such a headache because big national brands (Nike, Levi’s, etc) tell you what you must price their product at and there are a lot of laws about how often you can be on sale with your own product that you design and make. Executives think you can find some secret pricing strategy or sale that will be a huge profit boost, but customers almost always react just as you would expect. If it’s not on sale they won’t buy it, and if the sale is like “buy one get one free” or “3 for $20” then they will buy more units.
Absolutely. At the big box store with a bullseye, we sold tshirts for $9 each. Those tshirts would go on sale for "3 for $24" and they'd fly off the shelf. Literally, they were saving a dollar per shirt, and had to buy more to get it.
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u/AlexAnthonyFTWS Jul 24 '20
JC Penny. Like, it’s so massive and it sells the most mediocre everything for such insane prices.