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How to tell if an item is on sale at your local store

Have you ever been to a store like Target or Costco and see something you’d like to buy – but set it back on the shelf because you “know it’s going to be on sale soon anyway, so why should I buy it now?”

JCPenney went through this thought process recently and said “why wait for a sale? our prices will always be the sale price!”… and their sales plummeted.  It ends up that people LOVE shopping sales, and JCP reinstated a higher regular pricing vs lower sales pricing model like all other retail stores.

Pricing Gun
Pricing Gun

But what about clearance items?

You’ve put that item back on the shelf, and when you return later, it’s GONE.  Now it’s on the clearance shelf…. but are you really getting a good deal, or has the merchandise merely been moved around the store in the hopes that you think the price has been marked down.

Luckily, we have a webpage for you that can help DECIPHER RETAILER’s PRICE TAGS in order to help tell you whether the marked price is merely a sale or a deep discount for clearance.

Typically, most stores use a pricing method that has a specific cents figure (like $0.95 or $0.99) as the official “regular” price.

For example, when we shop at Costco, we always look for prices that end in a “7” (typically a $0.97).  Prices that end in this figure are not going to be discounted any lower.  We’ve seen the same philosophy at Sam’s Club when the last digit is a “1”.

Luckily, you don’t need to memorize all the details of what final digit indicates a sale or regular price – just visit the website link and print out the handy “cheat sheet” that you can take with you to the mall to help you save money on your next purchase!