One common and powerful useful marketing strategy used by most retailers, is the “SALE” word. When normal customers are walking around at a mall, they tend to go to places where there are having sales, because there they assume they are going to acquire the best value for their dollar. Of course, retailers know this, and they use that for their advantage. A few retailers blatantly abuse the SALE signs, by having literally year-long sales. An example of this would be men’s clothing stores like International and Stockhomme, who are always having some kind of sale. The issue with abusing the SALE sign is that while it might attract unaware customers, soon enough people will catch on that the sale signs are meaningless.
Starter retailers use the SALE sign more sparingly, using them as a weapon of price discrimination and impulse shopping. You are a customer. There is a 24 hour sale on a sweet shirt. You are not totally sure if you really like the shirt, but it is 50% off and you know for sure that the store doesn’t have sales very often. Chances are, you are going to buy the shirt. Or so the stores hope. The idea is of “limited time offers” is that there is only one time that you should buy the product from the store – now. This tends to increase sales due to customers buying things they don’t really need at the moment, but hey, it was on sale!
The other extreme when compared to the first one is to simply never do sales and put up posters saying that your retails has “everyday low value” items, which is why you do not do sales. This is of course, not very effective, because it removes the whole price discrimination aspect that comes with sales. For example, a rich person might be willing to spend $100 on a shirt, but a middle-class person wouldn’t part with more than $40 for it. The smart move for a retailer is to sell that shirt firstly for $100, and if the item hasn’t been sold after a while, set up a sale for those expensive items at more friendly prices. “Everyday low value” strategies often aren’t very powerful exactly because the retailers lose out on that surplus from people who have more funds.
The bottom line is, therefore, that while the sale appeal is very powerful, it is very important to not overuse it. Just like anything else, too much of something turns nauseating and sickening. It should be used with care.
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