Holiday furniture sales...
What I really hate is the way that the marketing directors of the big furniture stores are still peddling the tired old Seventies strategy of pretending every settee is two hundred quid cheaper on a Bank Holiday.

Who are these adverts aimed at? Who, after working all bloody year, thinks "A-ha! It's Boxing Day! I must get up and buy a sofa while they're all unfeasibly cheap, because there's so rarely a sale on at DFS these days."

Has anyone - ANYONE - ever thought like this?

Also, again from the Seventies, can we please drop the 'only...99' shtick? As in "This fabulous leather sofa is now only £299.99!"

It's three hundred quid. Keep the fucking change.
(Billy The Fish wants to gargle with Lucy Pinder's bath water, Wed 21 Apr 2010, 5:11, 11 replies)

Having worked in furniture retail at one point
"A-ha! It's Boxing Day! I must get up and buy a sofa while they're all unfeasibly cheap, because there's so rarely a sale on at DFS these days" seems to be EXACTLY what a large part of the population DO think. The fucking idiots.
(Spleep Shit, or get off the internet., Wed 21 Apr 2010, 8:42, closed)

The Real Idiots....
Are the fucking morons who buy a sofa outside of the 4 sales per year that the Furniture showrooms have...
(caescarna Hell's Roomba, Wed 21 Apr 2010, 9:29, closed)

This is very true.
I got a bit told off for telling people to wait a couple of weeks, there was sure to be another sale on then.
(Spleep Shit, or get off the internet., Wed 21 Apr 2010, 9:31, closed)

'can we drop the only ...99 thing'
it saddens me to inform you that in my experience (i work in sales) amongst the... less-educated (read: shell-suited) element of the Great British Public that the one penny difference can be a deal-clincher...
(hypnoticme is an anarcho-syndicalist commune, Wed 21 Apr 2010, 9:09, closed)

Also, as mentioned in the previous QotW...
The "String of numbers" thing really pissed me off.

"This fantastic leather sofa, now only four two nine"

That's not a price, that's just a code!
(Professor Kenny Martin Hmm? What?, Wed 21 Apr 2010, 9:40, closed)

This
so hard!

"Two nine nine!" Oh just fuck off.

Bizarrely the last satnav that I used had the opposite problem, it read the road numbers out as "A three hundred and three." Noooooooooo! That *should* be "A three-oh-three" because to the driver it's in no way meaningfully one more than the A302
(flimflam_machine, Wed 21 Apr 2010, 11:22, closed)

I am utterly convinced
That they artificially inflate the original sofa price by 50% or so when they advertise it in their catalogues or whatever, so that when they take that now 33% off again in a "sale", they're actually charging full retail.
( Kroney, Wed 21 Apr 2010, 10:09, closed)

They probably do this...
Supermarkets do it with wine, because everyone sees the £3.99 reduced from £10 and buys them.

Actually, the wine was only £2 a bottle, but they priced it high for a few weeks, dropped the price, and then suckers go and buy it as they are getting a bargain.
(The Kwyjibo A big, dumb, balding North American ape., Wed 21 Apr 2010, 12:13, closed)

If so, they're breaking the law.
According to the Sale of Goods Act (1979), the reduced item has to have been on sale in all branches at the full retail price for 28 days prior to reduction.
( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Wed 21 Apr 2010, 22:04, closed)

The incredible thing (to me at least)
is that when they advertise these sofas, most of them haven't even been made yet...my mum bought a living room suite from one of these places and then had to wait eight weeks while she had to sit on crates and boxes for the furniture to be made and delivered.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Wed 21 Apr 2010, 11:24, closed)

There are strict rules regarding sales
The main one being that an item has to be at a higher price for a minimum of so many weeks/months. After that time, those items can be reduced in a sale. After that sale, items that weren't in the sale can then be reduced for another sale and so on.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Wed 21 Apr 2010, 12:00, closed)