Insider shopping tips: retail

This post is part of a series on using insider information to get the best deals. See also: how to get insider info and insider op shopping tips.

If you’d like to pay less-than-retail prices at all your favourite shops — and avoid some shopping traps — here’s how.

Take advantage of employee discounts

If a friend or family member works in a store whose stock you like, ask them nicely if you can use their employee discount occasionally. Sometimes this even extends to other stores owned by the same company too, and if you’re really lucky they might issue extra cards to other family members. (In Australia, Coles Myer do this.)

Find out how they clear stock

Some bigger department or chain stores run discount outlets to clear their excess stock; some send their stock to third-party clearance outlets; others clear the lot on the shop floor.

If the store runs their own outlets, it’s often barely worth attending the sales in their regular stores. The discounts are often puny because they don’t care whether they sell their discounted stock. In fact, a cynical observer might speculate that they have an incentive not to sell deeply discounted stock in their regular stores — better to keep the customers who’ll pay full price in those stores and direct people interested in discounts to the clearance outlets.

In Australia, since David Jones opened their outlets, there’s been no point attending in-store sales — the outlet always has better deals. By contrast, David Jones’ main competition, Myer, clears most of their stock in-store and sells a small quantity of leftovers as auction lots. They have a strong incentive to discount, and 75% off is common towards the end of their sales. And you don’t have to trek to an outlet or endure discount outlet service to get it.

Shop before the sales

When department stores hold their big sales, the sales assistants have a lot of extra work marking everything down. In many stores, they start the afternoon before the sale starts. So if you’re after something specific in the post-Christmas sales, try going in just before the store closes on Christmas Eve to see if it’s marked down already. That it, unless you’re too busy drinking eggnog…

Know which sale days to attend

Usually the first day of the sale, and the day when final markdowns are applied (usually a week before the end of the sale) are the best times to attend.

The first day is worth attending because many big retailers discount popular items during the first day of their sale to entice people in — for example, fashion items like designer jeans, shoes and sunglasses. They don’t need to discount this stock as it would sell at full price, but offering it half-price attracts lots of customers. If you want this stuff you’d better buy it then because many of the deals are one-day only.

For example, in the post-Christmas sales, I bought only two things: Seven For All Mankind jeans at 50% off and Marc Jacobs shoes at 75% off. Both were first-day-only deals, and in the case of the shoes, the deal ran for one hour out of the whole day. There was nothing else worth buying though, because I’m unimpressed by 20% off last season’s trendy top.

If you’re looking for more run-of-the-mill items, you’re better off waiting til late in the sale. The less-popular stuff makes it through to later rounds of discounting, which happens after the initial spending frenzy. That’s when they’re trying to get rid of last season’s stock at 75% off, so you get the cheapest prices.

Don’t buy full-price extras

Most stores are arranged with tantalising displays of full-price merchandise out the front, a sale rack out the back and extras or accessories next to the register. The sale racks aren’t just there to get rid of merchandise that hasn’t sold at full price; they also help cost-conscious customers decide to buy from the store. This is important because once you’ve decided to buy, it’s much easier for them to up-sell to you.

If you buy full-priced items with your bargain the store makes great money, and you can easily over-pay for the convenience of buying the extras at the same time. If you’re aware of this, it’s easier to leave the other stuff on the shelf.

Hedge your bets

Keeping receipts means you won’t be stuck with purchases that don’t work for you.

I personally keep a sorted folder of receipts, and usually have a few swing tags sitting on my dressing table. I’ve saved a lot of money by doing this, because I’ve returned a few expensive mistakes and got my money back.
The receipts make it easy to return things that break, even if they were purchased months beforehand.

The swing tags are for clothes that look just-right on the rack and in the changeroom, but reveal their problems the first time they’re worn. Itchy, uncomfortable, rides up, static, just-not-me… these issues all take a few hours’ wear to reveal themselves and potentially consign a new purchase to the back of the wardrobe forever. While these could turn into expensive fashion blunders, if you have the tags and the garment has no signs of wear yet, you can air it and take it back… so long as the return policy includes change of mind refunds.

For this reason alone, I prefer to buy some items from big department stores with generous returns policies. While you might get a lower price elsewhere, if you change your mind and can’t return your mistake, it works out considerably more expensive.

Disclaimer: I’ve never worked in retail personally, but as an avid bargain-hunter I’ve picked up a lot from friends on the inside, shop assistants I’ve talked to and things I’ve noticed while prowling the shoe displays. So if anyone who works in retail wants to correct me on anything, please go right ahead…
If you have any other tips to share, leave a comment!