Sales: Some Lose Control if Push Comes to Shove
It is 9:30 a.m. on the last Friday of the month, and the crowd is beginning to get restless.
One middle-aged woman angrily pounds on the glass doors and pleads: “Let us in!”
Even the more patient members of the crowd are getting anxious. They talk in small groups, but one eye is always on the door.
Most of these people have been here before, and they are eager to get started. The event they are about to experience seems to be a cross between a club meeting and a religious revival: This is the end-of-the-month Friday sale at Mervyn’s department store in Northridge.
Experienced shoppers give this sale high marks, but it is only one on an ever-increasing list of sales. No longer are sales limited to seasonal events, such as after Christmas or before Father’s Day. These days, it is hard to buy something not on sale.
Good News, Bad News
For shoppers, there is good news and bad. On the plus side, customers can save money on necessities and luxuries, by waiting a week or two for the objects of their desire to be discounted. On the down side, advertising and new sales strategies are battering away at consumers’ self-control, convincing them to buy that bathroom rug today, because it will never be this cheap again.
Los Angeles psychologist Rex Beaber says that, for some shoppers, “getting a good deal is a kind of game.” He says most sales are designed to entice shoppers to buy items not on sale. Customers who realize this and only buy sale items, he said, are “the people who beat the system and who are proud. This is the person who is playing the shopping game, like the person playing blackjack by system.”
However, some of these shoppers really don’t come out ahead, Beaber believes, because “they never count the value of their time.”
“If you go to four stores and save a total of $15, you have to figure out the cost of your time, gas and mileage,” he said.
According to Beaber, sales enthusiasts are usually not compulsive shoppers. In fact, compulsive shoppers avoid sales and tend to buy extravagant, costly items because “it makes them feel good. . . . There is an element of frivolity to it, a certain financial indiscretion.”
The Mervyn’s sale, which is held at all store locations, actually lasts through the weekend. But the true sales devotees know that the only time to shop is when the doors open on Friday, which finally happens at 10 a.m.
As a Mervyn’s employee on the inside turns the key, the crowd edges closer and closer, until the door is unlocked and, at last, they are let in. Within seconds, shoppers swarm around tables piled high with sweaters, pants, accessories, toys, children’s pajamas, shirts, towels, socks. Elbow to elbow, the customers rummage through the merchandise stacked under “clearance” signs. For the most part, the competitive treasure hunt is friendly, with joking and chatter more common than pushing or shoving.
“They can’t open the doors without me. I dare them,” said gray-haired Mary Kovacs of Canoga Park as she works her way through a mountain of ladies’ shirts. “Look at this gorgeous blouse for $3.98. You can’t have it. Look at that material!”
“I always come, and I never leave with empty hands,” said Eva Eskenazi of Van Nuys. By 10:30 a.m. her hands are full. Among her finds: knee-highs for 48 cents, boxes of colorful plastic hair clips for 98 cents and a $15 brassiere marked down to $1.98.
‘How Can You Beat That?’
Another shopper with an armful of clothes, Florence Shapiro of Chatsworth, displays her choices, which include furry slippers for 98 cents and shirts for $1.98. “How can you beat that?” she asked.
Not everyone comes to shop. Young children are given bulging bags to drag along. Babies sleep, unaware that their strollers are being used to cart precarious piles of clothes.
Along one aisle near the children’s department, Wayne Johnson, a dignified-looking, middle-aged man visiting relatives in the San Fernando Valley, stands motionless, holding a growing bundle of items. He concedes that, yes, he probably was brought along just to carry the loot. “It looks like it, doesn’t it?” Johnson said with a smile.
Some shoppers are too busy to talk. They hold detailed shopping lists and copies of newspaper ads, which tell how many sale items are available in each department at the different store locations. The most serious sales shoppers plan to visit several stores this day.
“I usually know exactly what I want,” said Pat Scoman of Chatsworth. She comes to the end-of-the-month sales seven or eight times a year because “the bargains are good and the people are nice.”
Mary Kranz of Bell Canyon, who tries to come to the sales each month, says she is looking for “any bargains.” She plans to go to the Canoga Park location after finishing in Northridge. She says she doesn’t mind the crowd. “That’s what makes it fun,” she said.
Market research shows the typical Mervyn’s customer is a woman in her mid-30s with one or two children at home, according to Mervyn’s Northridge store director Linda Walliser.
“I see a lot of our customers who come in each week,” said Walliser, explaining that the store puts certain items on sale each Monday.
“All of our sale days are fun because of the people who come in,” said Walliser. “Our regular customers have a good rapport between them and the employees. . . . I think every store has its loyal customers.”
Individual store loyalty, however, is not as strong as it once was. The days when a family tended to shop at one department store are long gone, according to Leigh Charlton, co-author and photographer of two guides to discount shopping, “Glad Rags” (Chronicle Books, 1979) and “Glad Rags II” (Chronicle Books, 1982) and a book on style, “Chic on a Shoestring” (Doubleday, 1985).
“Now you can open the newspaper and see a sale every day,” she said. “. . . . You can shop very smart at so many different places. Consumers are spending less money in one place. They’re spreading it all around.”
Serious shoppers don’t mind driving a distance for a sale. Charlton, who lives in Venice, says non-Valley residents are willing to drive over the hill because of “the sheer number of stores. There’s such a wealth of choice. It’s always been a good place for discount shopping.”
Changing Sales
Charlton says she drives to the Valley to shop at discount stores such as Shoes by Shirley in Encino and Nordstrom’s Rack in Woodland Hills.
Enthusiasm for shopping has been around for a long time, but the types of sales have changed in recent years.
Betty Bailey, associate professor in the department of home economics at California State University, Northridge, said: “We used to be able to predict sales by a calendar--white goods in January, furniture in August. That doesn’t seem true anymore. There seem to be sales just constantly.”
One of the new sale formats is the “one-day sale,” now a regular feature at department stores such as J. C. Penney, The Broadway and May Co. Typically, the store bombards the airwaves and newspapers with ads on Thursday and Friday. The one-day sale begins at 8 a.m. on Saturday and lasts until 10 or 11 p.m.
“Our customers like them,” said F. E. Fitzpatrick, Los Angeles sales and promotion manager for J. C. Penney. “There’s a lot of merchandise on sale. There’s sharper pricing. . . . There’s a lot of schmaltz, if you will, on a one-day sale.”
On Saturdays when J. C. Penney, The Broadway and May Co. all offer one-day sales, Fitzpatrick says “the battle for Los Angeles is waged. . . . That kind of makes it fun for us.”
At a recent one-day sale at The Broadway in Northridge, the store aisles were beginning to fill up with shoppers by 8:30 a.m. One of the busiest sections was the men’s department.
There, Sam Fibish of Northridge, a cheerful young man with a quick sense of humor, was searching through the racks for dress pants.
‘Everything Gets Marked Down’
“If I didn’t need any clothes, I would have tried to go back to sleep or watched Road Runner,” said Fibish. “I used to work at a department store, and I know that it’s best to come early to avoid the crowds. . . . I never buy things at regular price because eventually everything gets marked down.”
The one-day sales have caught on because they make people feel that “you must do this now,” psychologist Beaber said.
“The sale creates a window of opportunity,” he said, “ . . . this sense that you’re going to have to go right now, the fantasy of the magic moment.”
Beaber explained that the store’s advertising tries to convince shoppers to buy an item while it is on sale because it will never again be available at a low price. “The purpose of a sale is to convince you to buy something you don’t need now,” he said.
Charlton agrees that, for some shoppers, sales can be hazardous to their budgets. “As easy as you can save money, you can waste money,” she said, advising shoppers, “Don’t leave your good judgment in the car.”
For every shopper who loves a good sale, there is a consumer who stays away from clearance days.
“I am the absolute reverse,” Beaber said. “I never buy something on sale. I find the whole thing insulting. . . . I would rather not have an item than have to be tricked into thinking about it.”
