Christmas is starting to wind down and our credit cards are all breathing a collective sigh of relief. With the average Londoner spending a whopping £973 on the big day, it is fair to say that for most people, Christmas is the most consumer-heavy time of the year.
However, just as our spending fatigue hits an all-time high, marketing departments worldwide start to rub their hands and the push for the Boxing Day and January sales start to tempt us to spend even more.
With this in mind, I am getting my “MoneyMagpie” hat on and want to share with you all the top tactics used and how to avoid being a victim of a false bargain frenzy.
Do you actually need the thing that’s on an amazing January Sale deal? Or do you just want it?
The sales can offer significant savings on really good products, so make a list of what you know you need or want to buy as gifts, and scope out the costs and where the goods are available beforehand.
It’s easy to get lost in the excitement of the sales, so carefully consider if you are making a sensible purchase that you’re going to get use from. This is important even if you don’t go into the shops but just go online. It’s still too easy to be sucked into buying something you don’t need or want. Research your items in advance too – so you can spot a fake discount!
So many of us click a link and see a huge saving and assume that it is real.
It is sometimes used as a clever marketing technique. This technique is known as “anchoring” and is a practice often used with the bigger retailers (specifically with tech actually) that have a high RRP so that they can suggest that their real RRP is in fact a good deal.
These items are, however, often on sale all year round. So, it is worth checking the item out a few times and in a few different shops before committing.
The sales are a time when you get slightly panicked and a very real fear emerges of missing out on a good deal. Act fast or it’ll be gone!
Again, this kind of deal implies urgency to the customer, suggesting they’ll miss out if they don’t take the store up on a fantastic deal, when you may otherwise have not noticed that product or spent the money in the first place. FOMO is a big thing in these kinds of deals: make sure whether or not you can actually afford to “miss out”.
Beware of Goldilocks Pricing.
Deals like this are labelled up carefully to make it appear that three products that are virtually the same are priced differently: one low-cost, one middle-range and one higher-priced.
So, the customer might think they’ve found a special deal and go for the ‘middle’ one for quality over the lower price, but that’s not as much as the higher price.
Don’t spend more than you were going to. Buy-one-get-one-free deals are clever because they literally make you spend more than you were going to.
“But the second is half price” you might say. True, but you only went into the shop to buy one, and now you’re buying two and spending those extra pounds.
Learn about Spaving.
While ordering online, for example, you might add more items to save time and money but end up spending more on delivery. This concept of spending more to save more is known as ‘spaving’. Keep an eye on what you actually want to put into your basket and what you’re putting in because it SEEMS to be saving you money.
First and foremost, keep your head. If you are “playing” the sales, you can save a nice chunk of money. For example, Christmas decorations are often reduced to clear (often as little as 10p), so if you have some budget left over you could shop and get some really good deals for next Christmas. However, don’t be tempted to shop above your means and to be dragged into making unnecessary purchases.
My best tip is “think like a marketeer” – that way you can see through these deals and will navigate a safe spend in the January sales.
