Does the DFS sale ever really “end tomorrow”?
One of the worst things about being a heavy web user when it comes to shopping is that you rarely just go out and buy something. Instead you waste a substantial portion of time trying to get a feel for if you’re getting a good price, whether the company will give good service etc etc. Sometimes this saves you quite a bit of money and gets you an excellent quality item. Other times you’re just pissing your life away into a big pot named “informed consumer”.
So, on to the point. Big high street chains that constantly have a sale on are confusing. Here’s my experience with DFS and their regular “hurry! our sale ends Sunday” in the interests of saving other nervous shoppers some time.
1. First surprise, the sale did actually end Sunday. Taking a cursory glance at the website on Monday morning, all the models appeared to have changed.
2. On a closer look, the names and pictures had changed but the underlying sofas were exactly the same. The one we were looking at was now two colour instead of one in the display picture, which now showed a left hand corner sofa rather than right (the tricky so and so’s) and the price had gone up by around £200.
3. The next sale started up the next weekend. Dropping the price of the newly named, pictured and priced sofa to…exactly what it had been before the previous sale ended.
So, when is a sale not a sale? I suspect there may be some law which says that for an item to be on “sale” it must have had a higher price within a certain amount of time, which may explain this behaviour. Whether this is the case or not I can imagine most people being a tad annoyed had they purchased a sofa in the week where the prices were inflated… Personally, naive though it probably is, I’d expect a sale to be for a small period each season, or perhaps across a season that’s slow for that type of item (“This is the winter of our discount-tents…” or similar, I’ll get my coat).
Before I go, another point worth making for those who like to haggle is that DFS don’t in my experience. Despite spending a good hour or two wandering around and sitting on everything (worryingly enough one of Jen’s favourite days out of recent memory) and observing seven sales assistants mostly milling around doing absolutely nothing and only one genuine signing-the-credit-agreement sale in that entire time DFS weren’t interested in even throwing in a ten pound cushion to get a sale in an empty store.
The owner of the independent interiors shop across the road made the point “They don’t really sell furniture, they sell credit agreements”, but you think they’d try giving some incentive to sign on the dotted line with the times as they are.
November Edit: To give you an idea of just how much a lie their sales are, our favourite the Caress which was under another name when we went over in the summer to look around is now at least £100 more than it was then. So, good value all round :p
Every other day I seem to come across a TV ad from DFS, with the old “Hurry! Sale ends Sunday!” Slogan. If you’re planning on buying a sofa from DFS, just wait a day or two and return to the store, as my Grandfather once did.
Last time I went in to a DFS store, nobody was doing anything. It seemed pretty empty until you see a couple signing paperwork. Buy now pay next year or whatever date they say, half price/better than half price/10% extra off, and of course sale ends sunday slogan. It’s all I remember them by.