It is now officially “Sale Season.” Maybe it’s just me, but I get the impression everything is discounted. Call me cynical, but I have the impression the retailers jack the price, then apply the discount so we’re really paying the same price we would have without all the arithmetic shenanigans, we just feel better about now it. Bait-and-switch at its most sophisticated. Or like that shell game the kids lure you with on the street corners.
The place that offends me the worst is the grocery store and its “Club Cards” that entitle me to the special Member prices on various items. What this really means is that the store has extorted my personal information, including my e-mail address, in return for charging me what I used to be charged before I had something they wanted other than money. The clerks push me to the brink of homicide when they glance at my ticket and say, “Ms. Coonts, you saved twenty-nine dollars and 53 cents today.” Like this is my lucky day?
What that really means is the poor wretch who wants to keep her in-box clear of spam has to pay twenty-nine dollars and 53 cents for the privilege (if she buys the stuff I bought.)
Yet, as irritated as the shell game makes me, I find it insidiously irresistible. Yes, I am one of the weak-willed. Recently, I found myself standing in the toilet paper aisle pondering the fact that, with my card, I could buy four rolls separately packaged, for $5, but, if I wanted them cellophaned together, the price was $5.29. This made no sense, and I stood there trying to figure out what I’d missed. I never did figure it out, and I left the store with the vague feeling somehow I’d been had, but I wasn’t smart enough to figure out exactly how. Is this how the stores want me to feel?
And what about the airlines! OMG, I travel a lot and I’m getting a bit perturbed at the whole pricing thing foisted on us by the air carriers. I do a lot of my own booking so I’ll compare fares to the places I need to go, click on the lowest fare, and feel a glow of self-satisfaction… until I see the amount that is charged to my credit card.
So, the base fair is seventy-nine dollars–such a deal! But, that’s where the adventure begins.
First, we have all those taxes and airport fees, and TSA fees (I just LOVE paying for the privilege of being assumed to be a terrorist then letting folks I don’t know touch me in places that normally only get to be touched after the relationship has become a bit more serious than a casual passing fancy.)
And then, the whole baggage thing. It costs almost as much to fly each suitcase to my destination as it does to get my sorry ass there–at some point it is going to be cheaper to not take anything and just buy what I need when I get wherever it is I’m going. And, if I want room enough to actually keep blood flowing to my nether regions and extremities? Yup, gotta pay for it. And First Class? Have you noticed that more often than not that is the only section in the plane with a working lavatory? And the riff-raff in the back (yes, that would include me) just has to hold it until we get to, say, London. So, now I have to pay to go to the loo? At least they give you warm nuts in front of the plane….
So, by the end of it all, the total for the trip is really pretty much double what I thought I’d have to pay. And I’m supposed to feel good about this? No need to worry though, if I don’t like it I can pay $150 bucks to change it.
So, are we all being had? What sales game irritates you the most?
I hear ya!
Determined not to be had by what I sometimes think are slick games, I find myself even calculating the price of gas to get to the ‘deals’.
My mother would say it was my tartan knickers showing
OMG ROFLOL. I refuse to shop at that store that gives special “club” prices. (I pay for Costco Membership but everyone who enters the store pays the same price.) When my favorite grocery store started doing the card thing, I talked to the manager and said, “You’d better not be doing what Safeway does because I will not shop here anymore.” Considering they all know me because I’ve been shopping there since they opened in 1999, it’s a serious $500 week threat (house of 7 is expensive to feed!) … They assured me no, but yes, I now get emails.
It’s the extra fees for five inches of leg room which is absolutely essential if I need to write on the plane, otherwise I can’t type in the small space between me and the seat in front of me. Argh!!!!
For me it just seems that everything now is a negotiation….and I’m the one behind the eight ball.
You are absolutely correct in your assertions of “arithmetic shenanigans.”
More years ago than I care to remember, I worked in a toy store. On some Friday four weeks before a holiday (I no longer remember which, but it wasn’t Christmas) I was told to mark up a group of toys by 25%. The Friday before the holiday, which left if memory serves four days of sale prices, I was told to mark them down by 20%, and put a big sign on the bin which read, “Save 20%!”
Let’s see, 100% (the original price) + 25% (original markup) = 125% (inflated price). 125% x 20% (markdown) = 25%.
And, gasp, inflated price less markdown = original price!
I don’t imagine that much has changed since those halcyon days.
Begin rant.
You know, the sales games don’t irritate me as much as the unspoken assumption that I live to shop.
End rant.
Ah the games get me….ALL games. Guess I’m just not a player .
And, as you might be able to guess, I HATE to shop. but yesterday I was walking through Nordstrom…double mark-downs….got six nice tops for $100. I’m sure I got a deal….just sure of it….
The one way I’m always sure of getting a deal — thrift store shopping!!!!
Safeway has found a way to make the dreaded grocery shopping trip take even longer, with their mobile app. Up here, with lousy cell reception, I keep getting “sorry, the application is not responding. Force close?” messages. Yet I feel compelled to make sure I’m finding all the bargains, so I spent way too much time in the store deciding if I REALLY needed another bag of baby carrots simply because they were priced down below the normal club price “just for me.”
There are only 3 grocery stores up here (unless you count Walmart) and they all have club prices, so not going that route is hardly an option.
Terry
Terry’s Place