Sale! Must End Today.

Posted in: Tricks Of The Trade

You know it goes on. You know these ‘sales‘ happen every Bank Holiday and more often than not, any day you just happen to be looking for a mattress! 

What you don’t know is -
If the ‘Was‘ price has any bearing on the  ’Now‘  price.

Trading Standards’ rules on ‘Sales’  are vigorously enforced. With that in mind, it can rightly be assumed that items with a ‘Was’ and ‘Now’ price can only be right – after all, these are usually big companies who do not want to fall foul of the law – so it must be true!

Note: *I make no claim that I am an expert on Consumer Law. I can only state on practices that I know to happen. If you can clarify or confirm or even disagree what follows, then please do so using the comments section below.

Half Price Sales!
You see a mattress advertised - Was £500 – Now £250. How can you tell for sure if this is correct? Firstly, it will be correct BUT – the ‘WAS’ price could have been any price you care to think of – Even, Was £1.000.000 – Now £250. The ‘Was’ price has absolutely  NO BEARING  on the supposed ‘worth’ of the mattress.

I heard a story of a manufacturer who makes beds for a retail bed chain. One  bed in question was produced specifically for an upcoming sale. While the order was being manufactured, a few of these beds were displayed in stores at a retail price of around £1000. At SALE time it was advertised at Half Price- Was £1000 – Now £500.

The bed in question, even when sold at £500, was *probably still overpriced for what it was. But the impression you would have come to in a sale, was that it looks like such a bargain. If a bed or mattress  is advertised at Half Price then logically, twice that price should be the real ‘worth‘ of the item.  If you had compared the specification of the bed above, to others with a value of £500 you would have easily found out that you could have got a much better spec bed for your £500. 

The same is true with RRP [Recommended Retail Price]. or SRP [ Suggested Retail Price] These terms mean diddly squat.  Manufacturers have no *legal say on how much a retailer should sell their products for – they can of course refuse to sell retailers who don’t toe the line  on the retail price of their products!  

On Silentnight’s website, they advertise some models from their core range. One for example is the ‘Radiance’ [Miracoil 3 / Memory Foam] Silentnight gives this model [SINGLE] a guide price of £419. And yet, as far as I can see online, no one sells it at this price – The lowest price I have found is £279 but tagged with – RRP £419. – Save £140.  In this case SN gives a disclaimer on their site *(11/2/10) with regards to the price to say that ” *These indicative prices reflect those offered by retailers as at October 2009.  However you may pay more or less than this.”

So what does this tell you? Silentnight have placed an indicative ’Value’ of £419  for this particular single mattress. They give their selected retailers a choice of selling it for more or less than this. With the above (true) example you have found it for £279. Have you actually saved £140? or have you paid £279 – the actual  ’worth‘ of the mattress. Only by comparing it to other ‘like for like’ models will you  know the real answer.

When doing price comparisons, even in store, always price up the mattress only, and the (no storage) base separately. You will then get a truer price of the supposed mattress quality. You will soon come to see that either the mattress is overpriced with an equally overpriced base or there will be no option to buy the mattress separately (see below).

Example: (Argos May /2010) Silentnight Sherwood Memory (Kingsize);

  • Mattress Only: £779.99
  • Base and Mattress: £1229.99
    Incidentally, another little thing to keep an eye on is the way the stuff is priced. How many of you I wonder have already worked out that the  no storage base above has a massive cost of £450.00? The nines are there not to add less than a quid on the price of a £800 mattress, but  just a guess –  to deter you making a quick mental calculation. If it was rounded up to:
  • Mattress Only: £780.00
  • Base and Mattress £1230.00
    It is a lot easier to calculate and to work out how much you are being asked to pay for the base.

Update 1: (May) This is absolutely scandalous! Have a look at the base - For starters, the castors are what you would expect to find on a basic divan set, not one that you are being asked to pay £450 quid for. My betting is on the fact that sooner, rather than later this will be on offer for Half Price. I shall keep my eye on this model and if I am right (or wrong) I will post the result here.

Update 2: (End May) What did I tell you.  The Silentnight Sherwood no storage Divan is now HALF PRICE at £614.99 (Was: £1229.99).  The mattress has also been ‘reduced’ to HALF PRICE to £389.99 (Was: £779.99).

Update 3. (End Aug) The link above does not work anymore and as far as I can see the Sherwood model has been removed from the listing.

 Bensons For Beds is another prime of example of ‘ *I’m not sure what the best word is’. I want to say Collusion but I’m sure that’s wrong.
They sell the Silentnight Miracoil Zone 5 double mattress for £425.52  – but after the ‘Sale’, it will be £999.99  (price checked 11/Feb/ 2010). Now there is no other retailer that sells this model – it is exclusive to BFB, so how can it be valued at £999.99 ?  Either BFB normally has an incredibly high mark up or Silentnight are selling BFB an incredibly expensive mattress. Incidentally, when I did my price checks in January the Sale was still going on – still with the claim – “After Sale Price – £999.99″.   
Update: The £425.52  ’Sale’ price has been increased to £499.99  with the ‘Was’ price still at £999.99
Checked – (Feb 2010) (March 2010) (April 2010) (May 2010) (June 2010) (July 2010) (Aug 2010) (Sep 2010) … How long is this sale going on for?

*The point of this small example is that “there is no such thing as a Genuine Half Price Mattress Sale”. If there  were, it would mean that the retailer would be selling a mattress at half the ‘worth’ price.

This was a difficult topic to write openly about. Obviously I had to resource my limited comments with due diligence. If anyone has any objections or criticism to my post  then  please publicly place them below. All other comments are very welcome.

John Szponarski.

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