"jmcquown" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:Just got back from the store, picking up a few last minute items (of
course
I knew I'd forget some things from the last trip). This time I paid
particular attention to the stickers touting 3 for $X.00 and so on, even
though I wasn't buying those items. At the bottom of each one I
encountered
the codicil when you buy 3 (or however many the sale included).
So in this case if you bought just one item you paid full price, but if
you
bought 2, 3, 4, whatever the sale tag stated you'd get the discounted
price.
My trusty calculator did show the sale price was a bargain, but only if
you
really needed (or wanted) that many of that particular item.
Jill
That sort of pricing drives me nuts, but is fairly common around here.
Sometimes it's all in phrasing -- "Buy one, get one free" is different from
"Two for $x", although sometimes the small print says in the latter case
that you must 2 to get that price.
I haven't seen it in quite some time, but "Buy one, get two free" sales used
to be fairly common around here. When you checked out, the first itwm would
go through at the full price, the second item went through at the full
price, and the third item went through for the negative full price.
Once it was salad dressing, at about $3 per bottle. The checker forgot to
ring up my third bottle until I pointed it out to her. Ringing up just the
two bottles would have meant I spent a total of $6 for the three bottles;
when she rang up the third bottle it went though as it should as -$3,
putting my price for the three at $3.
The only reason I can see for this pricing scheme is that some customers
will assume that they can buy 2 items for the price of one if they don't
want the third item. I think it they ever start running these sales again,
a local food pantry for the poor ought to put up a donation booth near the
store, informing customers of how the deal works and taking donations of
those free products. You know, if I can buy one of something I want only
one or two of, but get three for the price of one, I'm happy to donate the
items I don't need. All I'd pay for the donated items would be sales tax.
Anny