Community: Real Life

Sales stress


Cherry

Cherry is a fresher studying magazine journalism. She loves going to gigs with her friends while writing features and trying not to shop too much. Yes, all at the same time. Now that's impressive.

Cherry's partial to a little bit of sales therapy, but is worried she's falling victim to the evil ways of the retail industry.

Sales are a clever way for greedy retailers to fill their pockets. They happen in stores frequently throughout the year, but from what I can see the shops just seem to pull out all the old rubbish that is cluttering up their stock rooms. They shove it out on the rails, unarranged, with a 'slashed' down price which is normally only a few pounds less than the original price.

The most popular sales are the ones which happen in Next. There must be something extremely special about a Next sale because people begin queuing up at five in the morning! What person in their right mind would queue up at such a ridiculous time in the morning to buy rubbish from the store's stockroom? The chances are that if there is anything decent lurking in the rails, the shop's staff will probably have purchased it in the half an hour they get to shop before the shop opens.

January is definitely the most popular time for a shop to have a sale. Yet to me, January would seem like the worst time to have a sale as people would have spent all their money the previous weeks in the run up to Christmas - as if they want to go and spend more afterwards? The sad thing is that they actually do.

I regret falling victim to January sales in particular because you find out that the skincare set you bought in Boots for £20 as a present for your aunt has now dropped in price to £10. Not only that, we end up buying items we will probably never use or wear just because they have dropped in price and have that four letter word scrawled all over them.         

"They place non-sale items in among the sale items knowing full well that customers are going to pick them up in their mad rush without noticing the full price ticket."

Possibly my biggest bugbear with sales is the nasty little trick that shops like to play on their devoted customers. They place non-sale items in among the sale items knowing full well that customers are going to pick them up in their mad rush without noticing the full price ticket. By the time they get to the tills they have so many items hanging off their arms that they end up buying it anyway.

Members of the public still haven't realised that shops can whack up a sale sign in their window every time business isn't looking as good as it usually does. I can't understand what it is about sales that sends people into an absolute frenzy. People are utterly ruthless if it means they get their hands on what they believe to be a bargain. Even the nicest person can turn into an absolute monster while shopping in a sale; they will hog the rails and huff and puff if you dare to get in their way. God forbid you pick up anything that they have had their beady eye on.

As long as people keep falling head over heels for a sale, whatever time of year it is, the greedy retailers will continue to roll in the money that other people are practically throwing away. People need to realise that they are being made complete fools out of and think twice before being dazzled by the red and white signs.

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Updated: 30/01/2008


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