Are Coupons and Special Offers Really Saving Us Anything?
A friend of mine who works from home called me the other day. She said she had noticed prices at offices supply stores seemed to be going up, which struck her as odd considering the state of the economy.
I thought she had to be mistaken. As a small business owner, I get at least one coupon a week from different office supply stores (along with special offers from just about every other retailer you can imagine). They’re all pretty much the same, “Get $25 off your next purchase of $75 or more” or some variation on that general theme.
It got me to thinking. When I was a kid, I worked in a small corner drugstore after-school and on weekends. The day before a seasonal sale, the owner of the store would hand me a pricing gun and have me go around and change the price of the items that were going to be on sale. Actually, to be clear, he’d have me raise the price on the items that we were going to put on sale. That way, when the customer got their discount, they’d feel great because they thought they got a bargain, and the owner felt great because he was selling lots of merchandise without really discounting anything. It seemed wrong to me, but I was 15 and in no position to ask questions. That was a tiny local drug store in a small town, in anywhere USA, and it was decades ago. Could the mass retailers be employing that same strategy on a national scale?
Are they upping their prices and then sending us discount offers?
After my friend and I spoke, I did some spot-checking on my own. We moved offices recently, so we had purchased more supplies than usual in January. What we bought was basic for any expanding office. Things like large white boards, another laser printer, shredders, etc… In checking back on what we paid, I realized that prices at Office Depot had in fact gone up since January. I checked by SKU # and not by product name to be sure I was comparing apples to apples.
So, in essence, the special offers they send simply negate the increase in prices. I don’t mean to pick on Office Depot. I just happen to have receipts from them so I can be sure of the price changes. Has anyone else noticed this and if so, why haven’t we banded together and called them out on it?
