Promotion vs Sale vs Markdown

Okay it's time you learned some retail lingo because it always amazes me how many people don't know the difference between a promotion, a sale, and a markdown. So here it is:

When something is marked down that means that the price has permanently been lowered. A sale sticker will be placed on it or the price will be crossed out and the lower price written on. This product has gone down in price because it has been in the store for a while and a new collection is probably on its way and the store needs more space. First markdowns are usually about 20%, second markdown 40%, and then what they call "kill price", which will be 50-75% off.  Usually the company is still making money on the product until it hits kill price. At that point they are breaking even.

Where I work when it hits kill price it becomes final sale. This means no returns and no exchanges. It's final sale. F-I-N-A-L sale. I can't tell you how often I tell somebody it's final sale and then they ask if they can exchange it, NO! You cannot return it! It's kill price because we want to get rid of it, we never want to see it again. You are getting it at a great price so that we can make space so take it or leave it!

Promotions are regular priced items that are on a special discount for a limited time. These items will usually have a sign near them saying they are a certain percent or dollar value off. Sometimes it is a store wide blanket discount (eg 20% off your purchase) and sometimes it's specific items (eg $10 off shorts). These discounts won't be seen on the price tag because the item is going to go back to regular price at some point. Stores have promotions on holiday weekends, or at specific times to move items they bought heavy in, ie they bought a lot of a certain item knowing that they planned to have the promotion. The idea of a promotion is to give you a deal on one item with the hopes that once you're in the store you'll buy more items that will equal more than the original price of the discounted item.

Finally, sale. Sale is the overall name used to say that "we have markdowns". If something is "on sale" it has been marked down and therefore follows the same rules as markdowns. Sometimes at my store we will have an additional percentage off of sale. You have probably seen these types of signs "take an additional 30% off of sale" This means any item you see marked down (new price sticker over original price) will have another 30% off of the lowest price. The discount will come off at cash.

Sometimes I will tell people this and they say, "oh 30% off of everything? Because everything is FOR sale." No, this is not the same thing. Everything is FOR sale but only items marked down are ON sale.

Got it?