the cycle of sales & saint alfred markdowns

knowing when to buy is almost more important than knowing what to buy. of course, buy warm clothing before the fall winter season, but what if you bought all the jackets and pants you needed in a summer sale? of course, wait for a sale to buy clothing, but how much should you wait, since sales progress and discounts get heavier as time passes?

as we approach the biggest sale season of the year, this is inevitably a question that might affect some gametime decisions, assuming any of us have the self control to actually wait for sales to drop further

while we can’t really predict how much something will drop in price, here is a generalized pattern that could help you track where in the sale cycle we are currently:

sale cycle stages

1. retail price

   new product drops, usually catered to the specific season or trend. the only incentives that a retailer has to get you to buy anything at this stage are demand and utility. unless they can create a source of artificial demand (i.e. hype & scarcity tactics) or invent something with unique use cases, then there isn’t much logical reasoning to buy at this stage

2. generalized discount

   this is where retailers throw in a 10-25% storewide discount to get you to purchase an item. sometimes this is an ongoing discount offered through a one-time sign-up bonus. regardless, this is a truthfully meaningless discount that should only be used if you were already planning to buy something anyways

3. markdowns

   finally, that jacket you’ve been eyeing at for months has dropped to 30-50% off. at this stage, either people will be buying the item out of anticipation, or items will be marked down enough to catch the attention of consumers who previously did not care about the item at all

4. additional sale on markdowns

   this is the final move in a retailer’s playbook, which usually entails an extra 20-40% already reduced prices. there is actually more variance in the level of discount at this stage (since the resulting percentages can range from 25-80% of a collective discount). also as a sale progresses, the additional sale multiplier can increase

5. disposal

   at this stage, the retailer might not be able to discount an item any further due to a conflict in branding, so the item can be sent off to any of the following places: sample/overstock sale, clothing donation, landfill, or secondhand sellers on ebay. if you’re able to track an item all the way to this point & able to save it from the flames of capitalism hell, then congratulations, you probably deserve to buy it

most retailers follow different sale cycles, some repeat this cycle multiple times a season, while others only follow this pattern once or twice a year. you can map out your favorite retailer’s sale cycle by tracking their email newsletter (with a website like milled) or by checking if they have any sale posts on their social media accounts (if they aren’t too ashamed to take the posts down after the sale ends)

for this week’s case study on the sale cycle, we have saint alfred from chicago, who just recently wrapped up a flash labor day sale - additional 35% off existing markdowns

unfortunately, i wasn’t able to post in time for the sale—truthfully i’m personally waiting for a larger markdown in the future—but majority of the sale inventory didn’t actually sell out and I was able to get a one-time code through customer support so that a lucky subscriber can still access the discount

saint alfred sale selections (code: 2YW68YW61X7T)

someone please use the discount code so that I don’t have to bare the burden of having to look at that brain dead jacket at over 50% off anymore. just buy the anime tee and let me continue on with my life ♥