Sure, but my point/question is that if there have been consecutive 7-day "20% off sales" (with no #gaps') for at least several months, maybe years, how can justify that it is a "discount", if they clearly haven't sold for the 'full price' for at least several months, if not years?
toolstation sale
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Apologies I managed to post before completing my reply - now edited.
A discount is a very different thing to a sale. As an example it may be available in their physical shop at one price but offer a postal discount.
Indeed. As I've said, the cases I'm talking about are ones in which the 'discounted price' is undeniably an awful lot less than the price they have usually sold for in the past (hence a genuine reduction/discount) - but I imagine that the law cannot do much to stop them creating a situation in which these highly-discounted items are very commonly 'out of stock'??
I'm no lawyer, but I wonder how the law distinguishes, and how it defines the two terms? I would think that the average man-in-the street does not perceive any difference.
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They only have to sell the last one to clear their stock of an old line.
I have trade discounts in a number of suppliers, such as Wickes.
'The Range' offer some products as on line orders discount, if you wish to order it and collect in store it costs extra (listed in orange writing on-line) and you have to wait for it to be delivered to the store and processed for a second time.
Quite so- and, as I said, I can't see how any law could prevent that.
Fair enough - but I imagine you understand that I was not talking about that sort of ''discount'. Things like quantity discounts, trade discounts, discounts, discounts for collection, 'clubcard holder' discounts, discounts for OAPs etc. etc. etc. are commonplace, but not what I was talking about.
I was talking about 'discounts' like the one I illustrated in the Toolstation listing I presented in post #8 ("65% Off") - that being a reduction available to absolutely everyone, with no conditions. I can't see how the law could regard that as different from 'a sale', can you?
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It depends how it is worded but in very broad terms I don't believe there are any conditions on a discount whereas there are on a sale.
Consider this:
An Item is not selling at £100 so they offer it as a limited time sale price offer of £75. They sell enough to convince themselves the reduced price is a good idea, what they cant do is offer a second sale price unless it's lower than £75.
What they can do is discount the price to £75 at any time including during the limited time offer or immediately after the sale finishes.
Yes, the wording matters. However, if (as in the example I illustrated)that wording says "£5.00 (was £14.37)" then I think that is clear and, when that is 'said to' the entire general public (i.e. with no 'conditions')1. will; be interpreted by most people as "a sale"
Agreed, unless they first sell the item for more than the 'second sale price' for a period of time (28 days?). However, that prohibition would presumably apply to a claim of "(was £100)", "discount of £xxx" or "discount of xxx%" just as much as it would to calling it a 'sale'.
They are obviously free to move the price up or down, by any amount, as often as they like provided they don't makes claims. However, the moment it is called a 'sale' or a 'discount', it's surely necessary for them to be able to demonstrate that the 'sale price' or discounted price is less than the price for which they have recently been selling it, isn't it?
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Blimey, hope you dont take that lying down!!
Is there an alternative?
Your #8 link is noway a toolstation thing, it is as common as houses and based upon very limited stock and often at the end of a range. eg Their computer shows 500 across the 550 stores and they have gone for a new supplier. When that item does genuinely sell out (which your screenshot shows) an alternative or possibly new product code will or may be suggested as an alternative item. In this instance they show single 15, 22 & 28mm equal Tees
FWIW I have looked into that product and they had a delivery of 1200 on July 24th so potentially 2 to each store, my local store has stock control of 3/1. By coincidence their summer sale started 2 days later. The largest stock transfer of the product since then is 100 ~8% to one store so potentially a single purchase. 15mm 10 packs (52449)not in the sale are widely available but 25 packs of endfeed (23343) 2100 delivered on the same day and by coincidence 100 transferred to the same store. (I know a regional manager). For the same reason I was close to buying a £149 dewalt drill from SF recently at £74 when it was in their £99 offer.
I share your pain but I feel there is an amount of jumping on the 'misinformation bandwagon' going on.
It can work in your favour if quick enough. I was in Homebase some 20 years back and saw an assistant erect such a preprinted sign for a cordless drill reduced from something like £50 to £10, a product which the week before I'd been trying to purchase but OOS and I was there hoping it may have come back in stock. I purchased the stores entire allocation of the promotion. The new model being a slightly more than modest price increase. Checking on-line immediately afterwards there was only sporadic in-store availibility but very shortly there were none left.
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You missed the joke...
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I have always put this down to people buying up the reduced price stock in great numbers, no?
I know people who trawl the net for huge discounts on stuff, then they sell it on eBay for a modest discount from the regular price.
I reckon this thread has demonstrated two things or more.
1/ as John as pointed out , Toolstation appear to be selling some bargains as far as we can see. So good on them.
2/ it is rife in retail to sail pretty close sometimes to what sales and discounts lead us to believe and the real story and its easy to be mislead or even mislead ourselves.
A few or a lot of them can be quite conniving to mislead us or to entice us to mislead ourselves.
To a degree that is understandable and no business with any sense will announce " buy our rotten apples" but some do "Guild the Lilly " a bit a.k.a polishing the turd.
Past legislation has reduced things over the years but they still find crafty ways to deceive us in many instances.
I can remember a fair few of them and probably many of you do.
Caveat Emptor is still the first rule of buying in my opinion
1/ as John as pointed out , Toolstation appear to be selling some bargains as far as we can see. So good on them.
2/ it is rife in retail to sail pretty close sometimes to what sales and discounts lead us to believe and the real story and its easy to be mislead or even mislead ourselves.
A few or a lot of them can be quite conniving to mislead us or to entice us to mislead ourselves.
To a degree that is understandable and no business with any sense will announce " buy our rotten apples" but some do "Guild the Lilly " a bit a.k.a polishing the turd.
Past legislation has reduced things over the years but they still find crafty ways to deceive us in many instances.
I can remember a fair few of them and probably many of you do.
Caveat Emptor is still the first rule of buying in my opinion
That obviously may sometimes the case, and probably often is with other suppliers, but I am far from convinced that it is necessarily/always the case with the 'ridiculously cheap' prices that Toolstation sometimes offers.
There have often been occasions when I have been looking at the Toolstation website very frequently for a particular type of product and one of these 'very cheap offers' has suddenly appeared, so I've seen it very soon after it first appeared. In such cases, the item is almost invariably 'out of stock for delivery' the first time I've seen it, with only 0, 1 or 2 items of the product available from local branches.
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