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A local sale...

By: Decomposed in 6TH POPE | Recommend this post (0)
Thu, 22 Oct 20 1:34 PM | 45 view(s)
Boardmark this board | 6th Edition Pope Board 		Msg. 07593 of 60014
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I've written before of the local department chain that often has "Crazy Deals" with merchandise selling at ordinary prices but coming with gift cards that make them a bargain. Sometimes the items wind up being free, with the gift cards never expiring. You might remember that I bought a garden pergola for $800 this year. With the gift card, it was free. Last year, I bought 22 LED shop lights for $15 apiece. With the gift card, they too were free.

The problem is, my mental warning alarms are all going off at full volume. There's no way that this is a long-term viable business model! Some of the things that are "free" are priced in the thousands of dollars. (The record price I've seen was $10,000, I believe, on a house's oil burner.) I'm concerned that the store is going to declare itself bankrupt sometime soon. When that happens, I don't want to be one of the customers holding the bag to the tune of a few thousand bucks.

This summer, I made a point of buying nine of the store's biggest shelving units at $40 apiece. That put a dent in the $800 gift card. We've been buying other things as well, trying the whittle away at the amount owed. The trouble is, the store keeps offering more gift cards! Presently, the tab is $550.

That brings us to today. The store just announced a 43rd Anniversary sale with everything in the entire store coming with a 40% gift card. Holy smokes. That's better than Sears and Pennys initially had at their Going-Out-of-Business sales! I'll succumb to the temptation and, at the very least, buy more shelving units. I do need them, after all, and their pricing is comparable to Walmart's. But the sale isn't making my Scam Alert feel any better. And, no, gift cards can't be used to purchase items that yield gift cards... We'll have to pay with cash or credit. It continues to seem like the behavior of a company that is cash strapped and trying to empty its warehouses.





























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Gold is $1,581/oz today. When it hits $2,000, it will be up 26.5%. Let's see how long that takes. - De 3/11/2013 - ANSWER: 7 Years, 5 Months


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