111–120 of 231 posts
I worked in retail sales from 2004-2006 and I remember management ordering us to increase prices on items leading up to big sales. It seemed like fraud and it made me feel icky doing it. Especially when we would replace labels of an item that cost $99 to say that it cost $139 and was now on sale for $99. Luckily I haven't had to work in retail since...
This practice is illegal in the US. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-16/chapter-I/subchapter-B...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does the law catch the retailer who have to products with identical specs and different model numbers? Mattress companies have long used the trick to advertise permanent sale pricing that is just standard pricing in North America.
Yes. This exact issue with bedding companies has lead to several prosecutions. For example, permanently making up fake prices just to advertise a discount: - https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/snooze-admits-two-pric... - https://www.accc.gov.au/public-registers/undertakings-regist... What is it with bedding companies and criminal miss representation of prices?
It's always SALE! SALE! SALE! Everything must go! %! %! %! or something similar.
The same was true for carpets for a time, but they seem to have fallen out of fashion, at least I don't see it that often anymore.
But this is a general thing in every downtown or shopping centre across all sectors. And similar for groceries. I enter all of these with one big default deny and fuck off mentality switched on.
It has been interesting watching the concept of Black Friday (and cyber monday) evolve over the past 20 or so years from being mostly an "American big box retailer dumping excess stock" thing to "oh boy its black Friday, time to go buy stuff!" thing. The entire event has basically been undeservingly co-opted by everyone looking to cash in on hype over an event that basically doesn't even resemble what made it a thing…
To me there is two specific aspect of Black Friday that make it special for online shopping: - retailers are showcasing a limited number of goods that they expect to sell fast. This means short delivery times, no weird third party shipping from obscure places. They are prepared, and even buying at the same price as usual, the experience tends to be better. - the piling up effect makes it worse for delivery, worker co…
I wonder how much of that is true and how much is just make believe.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Terms of Service are universally wishlists of things a legal department may wish to enforce if they are so inclined. In this case, they are not so inclined.
Basically the same as warnings on medications. They list almost every known symptom without any sort of probability so they're almost useless.
It has been interesting watching the concept of Black Friday (and cyber monday) evolve over the past 20 or so years from being mostly an "American big box retailer dumping excess stock" thing to "oh boy its black Friday, time to go buy stuff!" thing. The entire event has basically been undeservingly co-opted by everyone looking to cash in on hype over an event that basically doesn't even resemble what made it a thing…
I remember the day after Thanksgiving being a day my relatives (at least the ones interested in shopping in malls, etc) being excited about going shopping. Lots of people had the day off, originally I think "black Friday" just meant that stores were really busy.
Norway, too. You can see that they start to ramp up the price slowly a month or two before. At least here, we have laws against bogus sales - you have to sell so and so many items for the "normal" price, or have them listed for a certain period, before you can put them on such sales. Not sure how much these (marketing) laws are enforced, though. Some 10 years ago, when everyone and their sister tried their hand at dr…
Oh wow. 5000 to just 100! Reminds me of that south park episode "These are genuine faux sapphire earrings. 14-carat gold, 86-carat faux sapphire. Faux is French. It's got an X in it, but you don't pronounce it. How do you like that for prestigious?"
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I remember the day after Thanksgiving being a day my relatives (at least the ones interested in shopping in malls, etc) being excited about going shopping. Lots of people had the day off, originally I think "black Friday" just meant that stores were really busy.
It literally meant the day stores would go into the "black" because many stores would be in the red for the year overall until they sold so much on that one day they'd turn a profit for the year or go into the "black" on their accounting.
Black friday is a term for a day when something horrible ocurs, the term was applied to the day after thanksgiving by police in an american city because of the difficulty in maintaining crowd control and it caught on.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Black Friday is only associated with Thanksgiving in the US because it marks just about 1 month before Christmas, but otherwise it’s not part of Thanksgiving. It’s also to start selling products for Christmas gifts — not related to getting rid of unsold inventory. Most companies have a fiscal year ending in December, so it’s mostly just about getting that last boost of sales before the end of the year.
The history of Thanksgiving -- FDR moved the holiday to support the holiday shopping season. Black Friday has not really been about dumping excess inventory but as the beginning for the holiday shopping season..."black" references the profit retailers make, going from red to black for the year. https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/franklin-roosevelt...
I'm entirely uninvested in the US culture war, but it's good to see something on the positive side of the ledger.
This have been a joke for a few years here in Brazil, we call the day "Black Fraud" (sounds a little better in Portuguese) The relevant point is that Black Friday is an "artificial" event here: we do not celebrate Thanksgiving Day so there is no need for a the stores to get rid of unsold inventory. It started just ~10 years ago when marketers began advertising it as a sales day.
Iranian companies are now advertising Black Friday sales. Even though in Iran we do not celebrate Thanksgiving, we do not celebrate Christmas (except for Christians of course), and even our new year starts at spring equinox in late March. Black Friday is literally a random day in fall which has no significance. Yet there are Black Friday sales now.