Much is made of the supposed great deals available to shoppers offered during last month’s Cyber Monday sales. But were the advertised prices that day really one-day only and did you save as much as they claimed?
We decided to do a little spot-check of a few of the prices advertised on Cyber Monday, and in some cases they were even “Cyber Monday only” prices. We selected three items advertised in Cyber Monday ads at six major retailers — Macy’s, Walmart, Best Buy, Kohl’s, Target, and Amazon. We compared the Cyber Monday price to the price that same retailer was charging two days later, December 4th, and again a full week after Cyber Monday on December 9th.
*MOUSE PRINT:
— Of the 18 products we checked, only two of them reverted to the so-called regular price by the Wednesday after Cyber Monday.
— In 10 of the cases, the items continued to be offered at the same Cyber Monday price two days later .
— A week after Cyber Monday, five of the products were still at the Cyber Monday price.
Walmart is the only chain that never raised its price on any of the items above the Cyber Monday price during this time period. On the other hand, Target, Amazon, and Best Buy each had one item that reverted to the so-called regular price a week after the sale, and Kohl’s had two. MrConsumer is surprised that that many reverted.
Here is the price comparison chart of all the items checked and their prices on the dates surveyed:
So, the two takeaways from this little experiment are that one-day only sales are rarely one-day only, and don’t expect to actually save as much money as retailers claim because the so-called “regular price” is rarely charged.
I was gonna respond earlier, but I just spent the last half hour laughing at those “Regular retail” prices
Excellent research. Should be more of it to alert shoppers to the possibility that the “special offer” may not be exactly what it seems. Interesting lack of uniformity in how what I will call the “reference” price is described. Three of the retailers give no info (they just put a slash though the price, two describe it as the “regular” price and the other calls it the “was” price. I was surprised that, and wonder why, none described it as the Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP).
Thank you for documenting this Edgar. It’s a pretty sad state of affairs when we’re surprised by a retailer playing on the up-and-up.
I think the biggest lesson learned here is:
Don’t buy anything in November that isn’t already marked down for Black Friday.
These places have to offer all those products at higher prices to justify it being a sale price. The real losers here are people buying TVs, knives, computers, and etc. the 1-2nd week of November.
Anyone else noticed the half pint haagendazs used to be 500ml, is now 450ml but the price went up. Just noticed it a few days ago at walmart canada
In the US, Haagen Dazs has been 14 oz. instead of 16 oz (1 pint) for years at this point.