End-of-season sale hacks: Making the best use of discounts to save money

Dubai: With the momentous Dubai Shopping Festival (DSF) less than 10 days away, which comes on the heels of other end-of-season sales like Black Friday and its regional version of White Friday, it’s vital to know how to turn these numerous shopping sale events to your financial advantage.

Unlike unanticipated flash sales, end-of-season sales occur around the same time each year as retailers offer discounts on items associated with the season that’s about to end to make room for the new season’s items. But to take full advantage of these seasonal sales, you have to plan ahead.

If one were to enforce a blanket guideline when it comes to seasonal bargain shopping, one fact that is worth remembering for all shoppers is that summer merchandise usually goes on clearance in June and July and winter merchandise usually goes on sale in January after the winter holidays.

So what financial planners and matter experts advise is with a little advance planning, you can save significant amounts of money and avoid charging up your credit card by planning your purchases around these guidelines.

Basic guidelines to help shop wisely when shopping online

When it comes to off-season shopping, a basic economic thumb rule that applies is that ‘when demand is high, prices are high and when demand is low, prices are low’. What this means for shoppers is that when the needs and wants of a particular shopper increases, demand is driven up significantly if those wants sync up with other consumers, leading to higher prices – making a reverse of the rule also true.

If you are a seasoned bargain hunter on the lookout for discounts during the off-season period, many buy items that they know they would require that year, but won’t necessarily buy them during the season that demands them. This is a widely practiced and recommended hack to make savings when items are not in demand and hence, when prices are low.

However, with the internet drastically changing the way most of us shop the past years, if you are in the habit of shopping online, you can often get great bargains at any time of year if you use shopping search engines like Google shopping, which lists prices from various online vendors for the item you’re searching for, while also making the most of coupons and cashback offers when shopping.

Every shopping site has partnerships for cashbacks and discounts with one or more banks, either on an ongoing basis or during special sales. Some sites offer an additional discount or cashback on purchases from their mobile app. If there are several offers on a product, check how best they can be combined to get the best deal possible.

Moreover, it also helps to sign up for one of the many online shopping rebate sites, which negotiate deals with some of the largest online retailers to offer you up to 5 per cent cash back on your online purchases. In the UAE, online marketplaces like Souq.com, Agoda.com, Amazon.ae offers discounts in the range of 4 per cent to 7 per cent of your transaction amounts.

Some pitfalls when bargain shopping, and tips to avoid them

Although a bargain shopper may be quick to find oneself a massively discounted deal, they are also more likely to fall victim to some of these shopping pitfalls, so it helps to keep these tips from matter experts handy.

1. When shopping during sales events, keep in mind that just because an item looks like it’s marked down, you shouldn’t assume you’re getting a bargain.
2. Know what the items you’re buying usually cost — not just what the price tag says. You can get this information easily by comparison shopping online to get a feel for prices, then visiting your local stores to actually buy the items.
3. One suggestion from some financial planners is that it is often misconstrued or mistaken that when buying an item you don’t really need, it isn’t considered a bargain even if the item is discounted steeply, as it’s just an unnecessarily expense that eats into the profits made from buying necessary items at a mid-sized discount.
4. Even an item that’s steeply discounted won’t end up being a bargain if you put it on a credit card and don’t pay it off right away. The longer you carry the balance on your credit card, the more the interest will eat into your savings on the item.
5. You can save a lot of money by buying big-ticket items in the month that retailers traditionally reduce prices on that item. Though these general rules are most applicable to brick and mortar retail stores that carry inventory, you can see some of the same seasonal sale trends online.
6. When offered a choice between a free Dh20 gift certificate and a Dh100 gift certificate for Dh70, a survey among shoppers overwhelmingly opted for the free gift certificate, even though that meant losing out on a Dh30 profit. So, beware of freebies, as a price tag of zero can be costlier than it appears.
7. Don’t let the store alter your ‘reference price’, which is a marketing term that refers to the price that you expect to pay for something, because you have bought that item several times before, and retailers are often tweaking it.

Months widely popular for sale of big-ticket items

Based on research and surveys based on manufacturers’ behaviour and retailers’ inventory or restocking habits, here is a list of which months offer major sales or discounts for big-ticket items.

When it comes to appliances, bargain sale months are December through January, and the same time period applies for electronics, while discounts on winter clothes, party dresses and formal clothing peak during the last week of December and the first week of January.

There is a trend wherein furniture sales are slow as summer ends, after which retailers entice customers with discounts during the month of September, while bargains can be found when buying a new car in October and late December.

Some saving trends to remember when shopping during DSF

Dubai Shopping Festival (DSF) is popular to buy gold and silver jewellery and diamond, platinum, and precious gemstones at attractive prices. Gold price in Dubai Shopping Festival tends to be lower than the rest of the year as well.

The list of products to buy during the DSF also includes a wide range of home décor products including quality carpets imported from in and around the Middle East. Look out for attractive deals on carpets and rugs ranging between 50 per cent to 75 per cent discounts. Exotic spices and dry foods are also in demands among the shoppers during the DSF.

One can choose to buy cars that will be sold at lower rates in the malls in Dubai during the shopping festival. Also, with the global village bringing together weavers from various parts of the world, clothes of all types are available at a lower price than any other place during the event. The malls in Dubai have also historically offered appliances and electronic items like mobile phones and televisions at comparatively lower prices under the umbrella of the Dubai Shopping Festival.