On-Off Sale Items Turn Shoppers Off, Not On
As part of its current “Home Spectacular” sale, Robinson’s stores in Southern California are advertising 23% to 44% savings on some furniture. One piece is a full-size, multicolor sleep sofa with two pillows, on sale for $499, “Reg. $799.”
This seems a considerable price cut, the kind that consumers watch for. Indeed, when Robinson’s first introduced the sofa at $499 in September, 1983, it was labeled a “great buy”--defined at Robinson’s as “merchandise purchased from our regular resources at an off-wholesale price.” For a year, it remained a great buy, but on Oct. 15, 1984, the store “established” a “regular” price for it of $799.
By Nov. 8, 1984 (the November catalogue), it was on sale again, at least through Dec. 9, and has been on and off sale ever since. It was on sale (unadvertised) from Dec. 26, 1984, through Jan. 20, Feb. 20 through March 10 (February catalogue), March 27 through April 8 (anniversary catalogue), April 18 through 29 (unadvertised), May 16 through 30 (May catalogue), June 12 through 23 (summer catalogue), July 6 through 28 (advertised part of the time), August 8 through 21 (newspaper advertised), Aug. 27 through Sept. 2 (Labor Day catalogue), Sept. 7 through Oct. 14 (Home Spectacular) and it will be on sale again in the Veterans Day catalogue Nov. 5 through 11.
What is this carriage trade equivalent of off-pricing? It’s obviously not a traditional “sale”--a singular event (usually January and August) meant, says one consumer, “to remove end-of-season merchandise or merchandise that isn’t selling.” It’s also not really discounting, given those 176 days at $799 alternating with the 218 sale days.
Blurry Law on Price Advertising
It’s also quite legal, or unlikely to be called illegal, given the blurry law on price advertising. Federal Trade Commission guidelines say advertisers shouldn’t make “deceptive comparisons” by citing a fictitious “former” price; the price should be “one at which the product was openly and actively offered for sale, for a reasonably substantial period of time.” Many states and municipalities further specify how many days (often 15 to 30) a price must prevail to qualify as “regular” price, how recently and even how many sales should have been made.
Such specifics, however, are difficult to formulate and enforce. Retailers argue the unfairness of requiring a volume of sales at “regular” price; sometimes they mark down merchandise just because it didn’t sell at all. Nor could any single definition of “substantial” time--seven days or 30--cover a marketplace of diverse industries, because “the lettuce seller has a quite different problem from the car dealer or the general retailer,” says Robert Harris, vice president and counsel for Los Angeles-based Bullock’s stores.
In fact, the FTC no longer prosecutes deceptive pricing cases at all, and states generally pursue only “the egregious cases,” says California’s Chief Assistant Atty. Gen. Andrea Ordin, “the merchandise that never sold at its given ‘regular’ price.” Massachusetts’ attorney general, for example, just got a consent judgment from seven major retailers under its deceptive pricing regulations after customs officials found clothing coming in from offshore manufacturers bearing tags already printed with the supposed “regular” price, neatly slashed, and the sale price.
For anything less than the egregious, what retailers do is in effect their choice, and when it comes to merchandise ostensibly marked down from “regular” price, “the better retailers including Robinson’s have taken the position that there should be an equal number of days off sale as on,” says Robinson’s attorney Don Hibner Jr., “and it has to go back to that price after the sale.” Some retailers also limit the frequency of the particular markdown--four times a year, say--and the number of sale days.
On Sale All the Time
Many people might agree with Hibner that “a greater problem is schlock stores whose merchandise is on sale all the time.” After all, the return policies of major retailers are usually liberal, and customers who got stuck with a temporary “regular” price can just return the merchandise and re-buy it at the sale price. Indeed, many stores simply make a price adjustment and save everybody the trouble of the return.
The ultimate effect of making certain “sales” into a new kind of off-pricing is that customers don’t respond any more with eagerness: “I no longer run to a store for a sale,” says a Los Angeles woman, “even when it’s a ‘major’ sale like August and after Christmas.” Many have already noted which items seem to be regulars on the on-off circuit, particularly hard goods, they say--furniture, rugs, certain brands like Farberware and Revere Ware, small appliances by Krups and Braun, Cuisinarts, Mikasa china. “They may be not on sale some of the time,” says a Massachusetts housewife, “but it would never occur to me to buy it then because it’s so regularly on sale.”
Some consumers are still offended by on-again, off-again markdowns, feeling that retailers, says an inveterate bargain hunter, are “playing games with the price and with the consumer’s perception of value. I think it’s deceptive, but I suppose that’s called marketing.”
