Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Twenty Steps Back, Twenty Steps Forward

I've come to the conclusion that every item at Bed, Bath and Beyond must be marked up 20%.

Week in and week out, my mailbox is flooded with "20% off any item in the store!" coupons from Bed, Bath and Beyond. (And I understand that it's my using them, with my mailing address printed on them, that keeps them coming.) I mean, I'm talking tons of these things. There are more of these coupons coming at me than Oreos at a fat man.

So I can only conclude that B3 is assuming everybody's going to be taking 20% off of anything they ever buy there. And thus, the prices must all come pre-marked up to account for the eventual "mark down."

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

those constant coupons are a double-edged sword. if I need something from B3 and DON'T have a %20 off coupon, I will grumble and go somewhere else. Quiznos and Subway have the same problem. I might go to Subway more often if they just lowered their prices rather than give me two coupons a month.

the mole

Roland Deschain said...

I noticed this same thing when I was car shopping at one point. I would go to Burt and Autonation and the car I was looking at was $8000 without any trade ins or discounts.

But Medved, the home of the "Push Pull Drag and get $3000 trade in" was different. That car that was $8000 everywhere else was $11000 at their place. That $3000 trade in you were so excited about would bring the price back down to where everyone else already was.

Eeeeeyyyeah. How about if I just skip that whole step of illusion and go to the place with the low price to begin with?

Amazing what you find when you shop around...

EJ said...

Wouldn't the mark-up have to be 25% in order for the 20% discount to return you to "normal"?