I thought it may be worth explaining the pricing system at Salvos stores, as it is actually kind of complicated and something you can work to your advantage, if you’re so inclined.
You may have noticed that Salvos uses price tags of several different colours (blue, yellow, purple and something else, I think). This system isn’t arbitrary, or a way of sorting the quality or type of the merchandise. It actually functions as a measure of how long certain items have been in the shop.
This is where another of the Salvos op shop conventions comes in – the ‘all blue/yellow etc tickets half price’ signs. At any time, all items with a certain colour tag are half price. What happens is that all new items which go onto the shop floor over a seven day period have the same colour tag. After three weeks have passed, any items still in the shop with that colour are half price for a week. Then those items that still haven’t sold are moved to a different Salvos store, where there’ll be a better chance of them being sold.
After the half price week, that colour is used for the newest items again.
Clever, huh?
So essentially, if you like something but can’t afford it/think it’s overpriced, check its tag and then figure out if it is currently half price/soon will be half price. Or you could wait it out for a number of weeks, if you have the requisite Nerves of Steel.
Usually I wouldn’t sweat it if an item is in your usual op-shop under $10 category. But sometimes the Salvos (espesh in country areas) do get wonderful old clothes, accessories and homewares, and charge accordingly. If you can pick up one of these items after it’s been sitting around for a while, you get a bargain, and the shop gets to shift some old stock that they would otherwise be moving off to another store.
Why all prices at the Salvos end in 75c is still a mystery to me, however. I’ll have to get on to that one.
Do you know of a Salvos that doesn’t participate in this scheme? Are there any finer points you can add to it, or why everything has to be $x.75? Any and all insights on this or other price systems are most welcome.
March 5, 2008 at 12:14 am |
aha! i finally understand. would you cross post this one at i op therefore i am bc i’m sure everyone else will appreciate it too. it was just yesterday when i was at the salvo’s in st kilda that i wondered if the tag colour coding and half-price sale were connected. there you go- ubiquidipity. did you stop someone and ask them?
a few weeks ago i bought a great pair of MNG dark green velvet trousers that are a perfect fit and in v good condition (they have even been taken up to be exactly the right length for me – spooky). they were $8.75 and it was a good day for yellow so they cost me $4.40 (which i note is not exactly half price but i can concede 2.5 cents to charity).
May 17, 2008 at 11:02 pm |
i’ve picked up items at the salvos for X.25 before! bizarre, isn’t it.
January 29, 2009 at 3:53 pm |
I can tell you why the pricing at Salvos is .75c, well its now .99c this was in the hope that if a customer is happy to pay.50c that they wont notice the extra .25c and this will generate several million $ extra to their 3-5million $ turnover per mth. There’s no mystery it’s simply to make more money.
I use to work for them but left because they were becoming to commercial, it stopped being fun, since leaving have noticed the price increase and to be honest there are several stores in my area I can’t afford to shop in and would rather not either (a bit dirty)
I can tell you why the pricing at Salvos is .75c, well its now .99c this was in the hope that if a customer is happy to pay.50c that they wont notice the extra .25c and this will generate several million $ extra to their 3-5million $ turnover per mth. There’s no mystery it’s simply to make more money.
I use to work for them but left because they were becoming to commercial, it stopped being fun, since leaving have noticed the price increase and to be honest there are several stores in my area I can’t afford to shop in and would rather not either (a bit dirty)
I mean there are still some great bargains to be found but most of the really good stuff never get to see the sales floor
. I mean there are still some great bargains to be found but most of the really good stuff never get to see the sales floor.
The bonus is that at least some of the money made dose still goes back to the Church to help support some really good programs.
March 11, 2009 at 11:51 am |
[...] always one ‘colour’ tag that’s half price (it’s older stock – i describe this process in detail here) so it’s a great way to get bargains if you have to buy a lot of clothes for the [...]