[Sca-cooks] Re: comparison shopping

[A F Murphy]

You know, I'm very much against deceptive ads, but too many consumers
who think they are being clever and aggressive ask for it. At this time
of year, I'm in department stores representing chocolate companies.
Today the store I was in had a sale on much, though not all, of their
merchandise. The chocolate is pretty much all holiday merchandise, and
is therefore not reduced - why would it be? (We do have some Hanukkah
boxes, still, and they are, of course.)  So all day, I had people come
in, ask the price of something. I would tell them, and they would say it
was a good price "Is it on sale?" When I say no, they put it down and
walked away... If I'd said "yes!" they would have bought it and been
happy, and the price would have been the same...

I used to have the same thing happen with housewares in another store.
Since it is not seasonal merchandise, that department had one annual
sale, and did not participate in the seasonal sales. During each general
sale, people came in, admired the grill/blender/coffeepot/whatever,
exclaim that it was a good price, and then not buy it, because it was
not on sale. If I'd kept my mouth shut, or even slightly misled them
("Yes, it's on sale!" as opposed to the demo cart someone just tried to
buy, which we're not selling...), we'd have done fine.

And, every year, the week before Christmas, I have people demanding to
know when the chocolate will go on sale, and why it isn't already since
"They certainly won't all be sold before Christmas!"  Since they
invariably do this while I stand there filling empty shelves because we
sell faster than we can stock, it seems a bit silly... then they get mad
when we do, indeed, sell almost everything, and don't have tons to sell
at a loss on the 26th.

Siegfried Heydrich wrote:

>
>    I see deceptive ads all the time, and tend to laugh uproariously at
>people who get took by them. I can't really fault the advertisers; they put
>it in writing for anyone possessing more than a mere moiety of their marbles
>to figure out. Those who fail to do so should receive a P.T. Barnum Memorial
>lollipop at the checkout line . . .
>
>
>