The Downside Of Discount Shopping

This guest post from The Digerati Life, a site that covers a wide range of topics on personal finance, from reviews of discount brokers to the best credit cards in circulation.

Bargain hunters will disagree, but paying retail prices may not only save you money but also save you some hassle. Learn from my mistakes. I bought a briefcase — a famous brand name while I was shopping at an outlet mall in person. While hoping to obtain a high quality briefcase at a low, sub-retail price, I ended up with an item I could not use. Little did I realize that by not paying the regular retail price, it meant that I was sacrificing something very important when shopping: the salesperson’s service and advice. By visiting a discount retailer, I ended up limiting my choices to a narrow range of products and only one brand.

As we all know, outlet malls are good places to find bargains. You might notice that the staffing levels in an outlet mall are smaller, and the service is downplayed. (This may be true online as well, but I have not tested that.) This business tactic is deliberate in order to offer lower pricing, and as it goes, low prices are the holy grail of retailing. So this was how I purchased my briefcase — the selection of products I had was limited in the outlet store but I made the best decision I could at the time and I was wrong. I ended up with a briefcase that I felt was ultimately too large for my needs.

So what are some of the things I learned from this shopping experience? Here are a few of my thoughts:

What if I had simply bought a briefcase at a regular retail store, with a larger selection of products? In a regular retail store, the salesperson would have had me try out several types of bags before I found the one that suited me best… the experience would have been akin to trying on clothes as many people do when clothes shopping. I might have chosen a different bag, perhaps not even a briefcase. Shopping at an outlet mall with a narrow selection of choices, only worked out poorly for me. Had I been willing to pay the retail price, I might have gotten the perfect bag for me, and ironically, I might have spent less because I would have gone with a smaller and more useful briefcase which had a lower regular retail price. I would have had the opportunity to eliminate some choices and that would have been good.

So here’s a tip: if you’re going to go discount shopping, make sure that you are able to compare a range of sizes, colors, brands, and consider which features are important to you and the most necessary. In the end, you have to live with and possibly wear what you buy, so if the product does not truly fit your needs, walk away and do not buy that day. Say it again, walk away and do not buy that day!

Also, check out online product ratings at reputable places. Epinions has been a leader in the category of online product reviews only — the website does not sell products. Best In Class does comprehensive reviews of digital cameras and plasma TVs. Many online stores or magazines also contain product reviews, while Consumer Reports is the old stand by.

Some would say I have experienced the sad tale of caveat emptor and buyer beware… So can I sue a store for their bad service? Very unlikely. That type of bad service is actually part of the store’s business model –- to them it is simply less service but not bad service. Can I return my giant briefcase? I don’t know because I was traveling and am no longer near the location of the store –- most outlet malls are out in the boondocks. I feel that I was taking precautions and that the real problem is that I did not know how to shop. No longer will that be an excuse. Shopping is a hassle and many people try to get around that hassle by not becoming informed consumers, but it doesn’t do them any good. In the end, since I didn’t have the time to do a proper job shopping for discounts, I should have just paid retail and saved.