Discounts and sales promotions are prevalent tactics that
companies use to get more consumers to buy their products. Having discounts on
the products increases consumers’ desire to buy, because consumers feel that
they have saved money by buying something on sale, even though they don’t necessarily
need those products.
Companies not only use discounts and sales promotions to
trigger more purchases, but also use them to slyly charge more for the
products. According to The Consumerist, “HP’s website has an offer going
right now where you can score a free Nook Simple Touch (a $99 value) with the
purchase of a new computer. But depending on which computer you buy, you could
end up spending several times the cost of the e-reader.” Though at first it
seems like the consumers can save 99 dollars on this promotion, the article
points out that consumers will actually end up paying much more than 99 dollars,
since the promotion is different for different computers. Therefore,
the sales promotion is a trick to get more consumers to buy the computers at a
higher price.
Be careful next time you see a sales promotion! It may well
be a trap…
Some one once said that "there's no such thing as a free lunch!" And because of that saying, I'm often skeptical of ads for FREE stuff, too!
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