Boxing Day sales are always one of the biggest sales of the year in Canada where it is quite common to find customers lined up for hours starting the night before to be first in line for the item of their desire when the stores open on December 26. But are all the deals and “door crashers” that are advertised to the public, but are these deals really all that they are promised to be. From my own shopping on Boxing Day for mainly movies, I have seen lots of DVDs and Blu-Rays that I bought when they first come out or during other sales and find that Boxing Day prices are the same or more expensive than when i bought them a few months before. This poses the question of is it ethical for companies to market their sales with such promise when referred to as their biggest sale of the year, when their sales are not actually their best prices. Or, is it the responsibility of the shoppers to be critical in evaluating the information they are given before shopping when huge sales are promised by the store.
As much as I want to say this is unethical purely based on the fact that some customers are not getting the best deal on certain items from the same project, I think the company’s are behaving ethically as they are not promising their best prices ever, but just that it is their biggest sale of the year and that consumers are believing that these companies are behaving in their best interests and not as the profit-maximizing businesses they truly are. It’s all in the wording of their campaign, as they will most likely use words that imply the best prices, etc but never actually state this. Instead, consumers should be a bit more careful with their money and evaluate Boxing Day sales to ensure they are getting the best deal and not mislead by the marketing campaigns of companies.
Darren, I too had a similar situation this winter break with sales claiming more than they seemed. However, I believe it is largely the burden of the customer to decipher the fine print on many of these “sales”. Unfortunate as it is that companies don’t appear more honest in their advertising, but their mandate is to make more money, so I don’t know if we can expect any less. By terms of Ethics, it doesn’t necessarily harms anyone, ticks them off maybe, but that is more a matter of strategy for the company to retain customers. So overall, if the Boxing Day “sale” wants to continue to exist altogether, I agree that companies will need to be more honest, and perhaps ethical, in their advertising.