Posted on Wednesday, 10/14/2009 - 3:27 p.m. PDT — by Brentwood Guy
Is it just me that thinks Kohl's prices are high?
I know that everytime I go in there stuff is 40-60% off, which brings it down to what the item should have been originally priced at. If it's not on sale I will just go back in the next week or two when it is on sale.
Their strategy must work, because they continue to open new stores.
Joined: Mar 2007
Current Posts: 21
Remember the 80% off sales Mervyn's used to have on their jewelry? That cracked me up. You would see some silly little necklace that had an "original" price of $1000 and people would think they were getting such a great deal because it was 80% off.
I think it was just a tax on people who were bad at math and had no common sense.
Joined: Aug 2009
Current Posts: 79
Ask any jeweler and they will tell you that department stores routinely markup their jewelry at a rate of 300%- 400% higher than what they paid for it and then "give" their customers an 80% "sale" price off that inflated markup price. A win-win for the retailer.
Joined: Dec 2005
Current Posts: 1247
and the jeweler is not marking up the merch????
come on now. big retail stores have a total different buying power then the little guy at the corner.
when the little guy buys 5 gold chains, kohls will buy 5000. off course kohls gets a much better price. the suggested retail price is still the same.
because of quantity buys, stores like kohls can have mark downs of 30- 80%.
its also totally normal to sell certain items at a loss, but make the profit on related items.
I will keep my GUNS, my FREEDOM, my MONEY, you can keep the CHANGE
Joined: Mar 2007
Current Posts: 21
You make a good point on the quantity buys, but I would regularly see things at Mervyn's that had an original price of, say, $1000, then you would see a similar item at another jewelry store for around $600. That would all be before sales are factored in. Mervyn's original price was not the suggested retail. It was a price that was WAY above that.
Joined: Dec 2005
Current Posts: 1247
@iagirl,
well, there is so much to it.
the big retailer have "regular" stock items, which they buy in large quantities, everything else, add ons, specials and so on, are bought as "special order" some (most) retailer do not get quantity pricing for special order.
so lets say comp. a, has the same item then comp. b, but that item is a stock item for comp a, but a special order item for comp b.
so, comp. a has a much better price, then comp b.
those large stores make very littler profit on regular stock items, quantity sales is the magic word.
only the store manager has access to view the profit margin of an item. so the one's who hang the signs do not know what is what, the pc just prints or tells them the price. nobody knows suggested retail.
I will keep my GUNS, my FREEDOM, my MONEY, you can keep the CHANGE
Joined: Aug 2009
Current Posts: 79
"...and the jeweler is not marking up the merch????..."
Of course they do. That's capitalism at work. I'm not apologizing for or defending any particular retailer.
What most to realize (or point out) is that the vast majority of our society purchases items such as jewelry at large stores like Macy's or JC Penny's INSTEAD of the Mom and Pop stores because it's more convenient to make all their purchases at the mall (one stop shopping kind of thing). Since our society is driven by advertisements the uninformed think they are getting a great deal on a necklace at Macy's that is "sale" priced down to $105 from a regular price of say $525. Everyone would think THAT'S a great deal. No? I would.
The majority of the Mom and Pop stores are only surviving because of long time customers, the occasional new customer and/or by providing watch and jewelry repair as well as watch battery replacements. When was the last time anyone thought to bring their broken necklace or watch to Macy's for repair?
Joined: Mar 2009
Current Posts: 92
Why would anyone want to shop at that store? The store's ongoing 'sales' signify that that the store has, at best, questionable pricing policies.