Search results for retail
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Posted
Oct 04 2007, 09:48 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Sam’s Club thinks I deserve luxury. Specifically, the retailer thinks I deserve a pair of Granny Smith apples dipped in caramel, rolled in pecan pieces and drizzled with three kinds of chocolate. This particular luxury would cost me $18.22 -- plus shipping, since it’s available only online.
The two-piece treat was one of several items highlighted in an e-mail whose subject line read, "Luxury You Deserve At Sam’s Club." That got my attention because I’d just read a review of a new book called "Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster."
Back in the 19th century, the "luxury" trade was small and aimed squarely at European aristocrats. Now it’s big, big business and marketed to the middle class. For example, the author mentions a secretary who’s saving to buy her second Prada bag.
She’s putting money aside to buy a purse. She’s not saving for a down payment on a home, startup funds for her own business, tuition to further her education or, God forbid, retirement.
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Posted
Oct 29 2007, 09:19 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
If the Toys “R” Us Big Toy Book is here, can Christmas be far behind?
Well, yeah. Fifty-eight days behind. But face it: No matter how much we whine about too-early holiday marketing, retailers aren't going to change their ways. We're the ones who have to change, i.e. adjust our reactions to the hype.
"Beebegurl," a Smart Spending message board reader, pays no attention to the retail calendar. In a thread called “Christmas Gifts,” she wrote that she shops for her grandkids long before holiday hysteria sets in. This allows her to look around "without pressure and at my own leisure and make a rational decision."
The most rational decision of all? Once she finds the perfect gift, she waits for it to go on sale. "I never ever pay retail for any toy."
Clearly, Beebegurl rocks.
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Posted
Nov 02 2007, 12:05 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Blogger Meredith H. Kaiser describes her education about the power of advertising in a wonderfully entertaining post called " You're ugly, poorly dressed and uncool -- basically a loser " at SavingAdvice . It seems that Meredith was always cognizant of advertising's potential. As a teenager, she was convinced that subliminal messages to buy popcorn were flashing on the movie screen. Several years later, she got the real lowdown from an ad executive stranded with her on a grounded plane: He schooled her about product- placement pollution in movies. "I’m sad to see the opportunity that artists have to inspire wasted on one more explosive chase scene in a certain brand of car whose logo gets as much screen time as the lead actor," she writes. Now she's acutely aware of the prompts to purchase all around us (we hope her cynicism about TV news is misplaced) and their not-so-hidden message: If you don't own this, you're a loser.
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Posted
Dec 05 2007, 07:15 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Partner blogger J.D. Roth of Get Rich Slowly alerts us to a Web site that reduces one of the pains of shopping. PriceProtectr will alert you if the cost of an item you've purchased drops, so you can pocket the difference if the store has a price-protection policy. PriceProtectr monitors prices at 70 different stores. J.D. says he hasn't paid much attention to price-protection guarantees -- up until now. "I don’t pay close attention to ads, and I’m certainly not going to keep going into a store for 30 days after I buy something just to save a few bucks. But PriceProtectr sounds like a great way to make this process painless," he writes. He notes that yapta provides a similar service for airline tickets.
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Posted
Dec 07 2007, 07:01 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Angie at Baby Cheapskate said there is never a reason to pay full price for disposable diapers, and she should know. This blogger tracks diaper sales like the National Weather Service monitors wind gusts. She reports: "In the last two years, there have been four weeks when you couldn't buy a jumbo of Pampers Cruisers or Huggies Supreme for $9 or less -- once in 2006, once in February, once in April, and once in October of this year. Even then, megas, supermegas, or boxes were on sale, and there may have been a good sale in your neck of the woods, but not mine."
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Posted
Dec 11 2007, 02:54 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
We've noticed from personal experience that finding solid tips on mattress shopping can be difficult. The standard advice to spend 15 minutes on a showroom mattress seems somewhat unsanitary and extremely time-consuming, particularly if you fall asleep. So we were grateful to read Saving Freak's post called "Mattress Myths." The myth he busts is that you need to spend $2,500 to get a good night's sleep. "Now I have searched and searched and found no real scientific evidence that one of these mattresses actually helps you sleep better," said Freak, who sleeps happily on a $400 clearance set. He also offers some shopping rules, topped by: "Never let a pregnant woman pick out your mattress." It will be too firm over the long haul, and you'll spend more than you'd planned.
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Posted
Feb 13 2008, 12:54 PM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Blue Nile shares are down 17% today to $44.67 after the online jeweler gave a first-quarter forecast Tuesday that was waaay below what the Street wanted. Blue Nile said it expected Q1 earnings of 11 cents a share on sales of $67.9 million. Analysts were expecting earnings of 23 cents a share on sales of $82.3 million. That's quite a disparity. "We did not believe the jewelry market would weaken so dramatically and
we did not believe Nile would be this cyclical," said Citi analyst Mark Mahaney.
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Posted
Mar 05 2008, 09:15 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Which deal sounds better: buy one item and get 50% off the second, or get 25% off each of two items?
What's more attractive: a low monthly payment or a high one?
Are deals like "six for $10" capitalizing on people who are bad at math?
Smart Spending message board reader "SC CDF" started a thread about "math games" that retailers play with consumers' heads.
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Posted
May 27 2008, 06:27 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner blog Blueprint for Financial Prosperity. If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not your enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle. -- Sun Tzu's "Art of War" In this post, I'm going to try to identify a salesperson's tools, why they work, and what you can do to defend against them whenever you're going to make a purchase.
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Posted
Jun 12 2008, 12:02 PM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
A major Borders shareholder wants the company to sell itself to Amazon. And when a guy like William Ackerman talks, Borders is going to at least listen carefully. Trouble is, Ackerman's pitch falls flat. Borders shares are up 3% on the news today to $6.94.
Ackerman is the billionaire founder of a hedge fund that owns about 30% of Borders. He thinks Amazon could use a physical presence across the country (Borders has 500 stores). It would cost Amazon more than $1 billion to build those stores on its own, but it could buy Borders for $400 million, Ackerman said. If Amazon wanted to open stores, it would have done so a long time ago. But Ackerman says that life's about to change for Amazon in a way that might make Borders more attractive.
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