Happy New Year to you since it’s my first column for the year! I’m back in Europe and I am currently trying to protect my wallet from the sales on steroids situation that usually follows the holiday season.
I always find it amazing how brick and mortar sales manage to make everything look cheap and unworthy of ever being full price. The markdowns are always so drastic and welcoming, but the crowds, the chaos and the poor merchandising leave a sour taste in my mouth every time I visit the store.
There are times when sales feel like garbage collection. An item that was quoted at €70, is reduced to €7, but is lying on the ground! This really grinds my gears. I often ask myself why was it even full price in the first place! The fashion value seems to erase itself when it’s reduced.
Nevertheless, the excitement in sales always manages to emit a magnetic pull and if I avoid it, I feel I am missing out! Am I really missing out though?
Honestly, seeing up to 70 per cent off does make me cringe when I think of the amount of money I could have saved if I had just waited. As a result, my new habit is to troll the internet for a better deal before I buy something full price. Constant sales and mark downs engender a frugal attitude. We now want to always feel as if we are winning even if it is by a dollar or two.
For me, there is some ambivalence. Don’t get me wrong, I love sales and a good bargain but I am starting to detest how sales have trained us to consume fashion and how we value the clothes we have. Sometimes it’s not really worth it in the end.
Sales have made us addictive to owning more, rather than being more stylish and wise by only buying what is necessary.
You see, you can develop an impulsive buying pattern, which is sometimes good. But if you are often pressed for cash it’s a wasteful attitude as we live in a disposable fashion era. There is often a tendency to not really value a sale piece, since it wasn’t really an investment. And if the price winning euphoria takes precedence and you buy only when it’s a steal, then you could be buying to hoard. It means you actually like the price more than the item. You would have gone from ‘oh I love this outfit and can’t wait to wear it’ to ‘oh I’ll shove it in my closet and wear it at some point, it was a good deal.’ Don’t feel too bad, when all the pushing and tumbling is removed, I still feel the need to only buy on sale because I too am addicted to the win.
Sales online and sales in brick and mortar stores are basically the same. They train us to be deal hunters and to ultimately shift the main reasons why we consume.
For me it is much easier to handle a sale online because of the filter features, the comfort of being in pajamas, maybe in bed, not to mention the no eye turn feature you only tend to get from the sale circus in stores. Online sales also somehow manage to make the clothes appear to be more valuable as opposed to when they are tossed around in store.
I actually realized that I bought a majority of my honeymoon clothing from ASOS’s sale. One would think that for a special occasion like a honeymoon, I would at least invest in pieces I wouldn’t eventually forget. But I was so unwilling to pay full price because of the discount retail environment that we now function in.
The pieces varied from a very intricate crochet dress that I picked up for about $27, which was reduced from $77 to a fringe bathing suit that was capped at $69. I couldn’t risk that one going on sale and missing my size. But crochet for $27? We all know that is never going to happen again.
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