Sales Are Shams but Deals Are Real: Here’s How to Know the Difference
Nathan Burrow is an editor who covers shopping, retail trends, and deals. He has scanned countless sales and discounts. Most underwhelm.
Online sales are everywhere. They can take the form of targeted emails promising giant discounts, or holiday or anniversary sale “extravaganzas” touted with exciting but mostly meaningless language like “Our biggest event of the year!” It’s often quite difficult to know whether an offering is an overhyped “sale” that doesn’t provide a meaningful discount or an actual deal. Typical “sale” promotions are awash in marketing language and inflated “full” prices, and they’re often saddled with a healthy list of exclusions or conditions. But an actual deal is a real and meaningful discount off the typical price of an item.
How sales can trick you
When a retailer presents a product as being discounted, shoppers often trust that the discount is legitimate, and it alters their shopping behaviors. Some evidence: When major chain stores that offer perpetually discounted items or coupons (JC Penney, most notably) have experimented with ending a “sale” and presenting the same item at an everyday low price, purchase numbers have fallen, even though the previously promoted “sale” price and the everyday low price are exactly the same. Discounts also create a sense of urgency, as shoppers experience anticipatory regret at the thought of missing a deal (effectively, FOMO).
The ways in which sellers present discounts also put shoppers at a disadvantage. Sale items under $100 are often presented with a percentage off, while sale items over $100 are presented with a dollar amount off. Why? The answer is in the framing, which makes discounts seem larger, according to Jonah Berger, marketing professor at the Wharton School and author of Contagious: Why Things Catch On. In the world of sales and discounts, shoppers’ inability to really do the math is preyed upon near constantly, as buyers often respond more to promos like “buy one, get one 50% off” than to a 33% flat discount—even though the latter would save them more. Even the prices themselves are manipulated, both in-store and online, to end in 9, .99, or .95 rather than a round number. (Wirecutter rounds such numbers, which can be found even in legitimate sales, for maximum transparency.)
The Wirecutter approach
The Wirecutter Deals team bases our deal-vetting rubric on in-depth price research and tens of thousands of hours of deal scanning, across major deal events like Black Friday as well as random weekend mornings. We’ve researched and dismissed millions of deals over the years. We’ve barely found 22,000 worth sharing with our readers.
We objectively report price drops and price trends. We have no interest in making a sale seem better than it actually is. Our aim is to serve readers, and oftentimes that means urging readers not to buy something that we think is a lousy deal. Wirecutter does often make money on the affiliate links our readers click to make a purchase, and we appreciate the clicks, but we intentionally and carefully ensure that the Deals team is never aware of the revenue Wirecutter generates, and we don’t factor any affiliate considerations into our deal-vetting rubric.
We’ve scanned thousands of online sales. Nearly every advertised “sale” item online offers something that, through the right lens, could be considered a discount, whether it’s a discount versus the manufacturer’s suggested retail pricing, a price drop versus the initial retailer sale price, or a price reduction by a minuscule percentage. Our philosophy holds that negligible discounts are simply not good enough. The Wirecutter Deals page regularly highlights the best, truly notable recent discounts on Wirecutter picks and recommendations from our expert editorial staff, and during deal events like Black Friday, we take exactly the same approach. Ultimately, we’re reader-focused journalists and researchers, here to answer questions, cut through the clamorous, often ear-splitting promotional noise, and identify the real deals among the overhyped sales.
For great everyday deals, visit the Wirecutter Deals page and follow us on Twitter @WirecutterDeals.
Further reading
September 2021 Deals and Sales Predictions: Labor Day Discounts on Mattresses, Outdoor Gear From REI, and More
by Elissa Sanci
Which products are most likely to see great deals this month? The Wirecutter Deals team makes its expert predictions.
The Best Early Amazon Prime Day Deals of 2023 (So Far)
by Wirecutter Staff
Prime Day 2023 isn’t officially here yet, but some Prime Day deals already are. These are the best early Prime Day sales we’ve found so far.
It’s Not Worth Camping Out in Front of Stores on Black Friday
by Elissa Sanci
You’ll find better deals online during the holiday sales.
October 2021 Deals and Sales Predictions: Discounts on Smart Home Gadgets, Cell Phones, and More
by Elissa Sanci
Which products are most likely to see great deals this month? The Wirecutter Deals team makes its expert predictions.