Shady Jewelry Store Advertising Tactics

Written by nickel - 7 Comments

I’ve written in the past about mall jewelry stores and how everything that they sell seems to be perpetually on sale for 30%, 50%, or even 70% off the ‘regular’ price. In fact, it got so bad that at one point Zales was inserting a bit of small print into their TV ads admitting that “Original prices may not have resulted in sales.” Well, those dastardly jewelers are back at it… In the runup to Mother’s Day I say a TV ad for some sort of trinket (probably a tennis bracelet — it seems like they’re always hawking tennis bracelets) that was ‘on sale’ for $299. The fine print? In this case they specified a ‘will be’ price, and in “Will be $399.” In other words, as long as they bump the price up at some point in the future (like once they’ve sold out and the item is on backorder) they can get away with calling the current (i.e., regular) price a sale price. As always, buyer beware. Especially when it comes to mall jewelry stores.

Published on May 12th, 2006 - 7 Comments
Filed under: Miscellany
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Comments (scroll down to add your own):

Ever been to Kohls? They do the exact same thing, everything is on sale every day of every week. I think it just reaches the point where you disregard the “sale.” If the reason why you are buying something is to get a deal you probably shouldn’t be buying it.
Comment by Andrew — May 12th 2006 @ 6:27 pm
Talk about bogus on-sale. I have been noticing that there are some stores that claim to go out of business in X days, and “Everything Must Go”. You know what, after X days, they are still there, and the clearance sale price was never a good price. There are so many unwise shoppers out there. I walked out of those stores with 40% off entire store without picking any items which are simply too pricey, and yet the store is more than half empty. Lots of people think going-out-of-business sale must be good, but in fact, it is not.
Comment by frugal — May 13th 2006 @ 12:25 am
We have a carpet store that has had a remodeling sale for a couple of months now. Hmmmm….
Comment by mbhunter — May 14th 2006 @ 12:08 am
I always notice when the nearby auto dealership has their “We ordered too many cars, our lots are overpacked, everything must go” sale, and on the same ad it’ll say “we’ll buy your trade-in even if you don’t buy from us.” I guess there must be a little space left on the lots after all…
Comment by Scott — May 14th 2006 @ 10:32 am
One other thing to look for with outlets, specifically Zales Outlet is the return policy. I learned the hard way that the Zales Outlet has no return policy, as per the line of 10 pt text on my 22 inches of receipt. And, I was told, there was a sign warning me… behind the register on the other side of the store.

I’m still pretty steamed about it. Yes, I should have read every word of the receipt before signing it. A slightly expensive life lesson.
Comment by Martin — May 15th 2006 @ 4:42 pm
I remember once having a conversation with a friend of mine, whoc pointed out that ‘SALE’ simply means that a store has stuff for sale, not necessarilly at a good price.
Comment by Nenad — May 17th 2006 @ 3:08 am
Third anniversary-fire sale! The rug stores crack me up sometimes. Those are ussually small shops, but how can big chains do this sneaky crap? Is there one evil person or do all 1000 employees get together and decide how to con customers? I know some people can’t work where they want, but I am starting get mad at the tools that work service for these companies!
Somehow they always can get your money back, if you ask 5 times, so they know you weren’t fairly dealt with.
Comment by fred — Jun 14th 2008 @ 5:04 pm