How to tell if you’re really saving on that special offer
Everyone loves a special offer but how do you know if that bargain is worth it or not? One way to know if you’re getting the best bang for your buck is to separate the special offers that you’re emailed into dollars-off and percentage-off.
Hunt for special offers which discount by a $ amount if the gift is under $100 AND special offers which discount the item by a percentage amount if it’s over $100. Let’s compare a discount of $25 and a discount of 25% to see where you come out ahead.
While the shopping newsletters won’t thank me for saying so, you’ll save the most on dollar-discounts if you match or go only slightly over the minimum $ amount per purchase, but not exceed them. For example, if a website offers $25 off orders of $75 or more on a gift item, if you spend $75, you’ll save yourself 33.3% ($25). If you spend $125, the $25 saving becomes worth only 20%, and if you splurge $200 you’ve saved only 12.5% and if you went really crazeeeee and spent $500, with that same $25 saving, you’ve only shaved 5% off the total price. For the best savings: buy one item. Complete sale. Repeat.
By comparison, percentage discount offers save you more the more you spend in one purchase. So a 25% discount on orders of $75 will save yourself $18.75, on an order of $125 will save yourself $31.25, and $200 will knock off $50 while a $500 splurge will reduce the entire amount by a whopping $125. This is where you come out best if you can do all your gift shopping at one website on one order. The shipping works out cheaper, too.
Tags: bargain-hunting, discount, gift shopping, special offers
[...] My tip is, don’t enter today’s date (with your real birth year). Add at least one day or better yet, one week at least from the current date to your fake birthday registration details. This makes it look more genuine to the etailer and also gives you more time to look around their site at their other products. As I mentioned in an earlier post, you will save much more if you can use your percentage discount for a range of items in one purchase. [...]
[...] you read my post on how to work out whether you’re saving on that special offer, you’ll know you save big time on a percentage discount, especially if you spend over $100, [...]