The Sale Shopping Code

I’ve never understood clothes shopping. Partially because as a petulant child I used to rebel against my mother by refusing to enter them in the first place. However, there comes a time in every man’s life when he meets someone special, and when that kind of thing happens you sometimes have to give up certain prejudices that you used to hold onto. Thus, for the last two years since I’ve been ”taken”, this has been one of my sacrifices.

For the while I’ve broken my clothes shopping fast though, I’ve seen a good deal that’s both startled and surprised me in equal measure. There have been aspects of shopping which I didn’t know even existed, almost like there was a whole code that I missed out on in my childhood. Here are some of the major observations I’ve had so far (for any shop-a-holics out there you have permission to correct any misconceptions I may have). Here are my three golden shoppers rules:

1) You can never have enough clothes - Now, whenever I’ve shopped in the past, I usually look at what I have and figure out what I need. I find what I need. I buy what I need. I have what I need. However, clothes shopping is no-where near as simple as buying anything else. Apparently, you can have enough clothes to last a fortnight, but what you really need are more items which will go well with other ones. For instance, a black hat is completely different to the grey hat of the exact same make and size and therefore you have to buy both, one for your black coat wintery outfit and the other for your… erm… whatever you’d need a grey hat for. By the way, this is despite the fact you already have three other different hats at home.

2) Buy things now! - Again, in normal shopping life, if you’re browsing and suddenly see something you like, you can go home and think about it before going out to make your purchase. In the clothes shopping world considering before buying is like playing a game of Risk with an egg-timer. If you see something you really like, the chances are someone else will really like it, so when you come back it may be already gone. This makes life difficult, the shopper is torn between thinking buying or waiting. If they buy, they risk missing a SALE, which knocks their self-esteem. If they wait and return to the shop seeing their precious item gone, the fact they cannot wear the said item also knocks self-esteem.

3) Go for the “bargains” – Now, this is one of the things that puzzles me the most about clothes shopping. With most items, if something is half price, but still outside what you were intending to spend, then it the item isn’t worth it’s cost. However, in the clothes shopping world, this is completely different. If something is half-price, almost no-matter what it actually is, or how many of the same type of clothing you have, provided it fits and goes with other things you have, it’s a “bargain”.

Now a “bargain” is simply defined as being ”a good deal”, but in a lot of shops I’m not convinced this is what it is. After all, wherever you go, there is always at least one SALE on somewhere. As well as this every self-respecting woman seems to get “bargain”s every time they go out shopping. Indeed, the only people that pay full price for clothes are either saps like me who have dared to go out shopping with no idea of how anything works, people who are loaded or alternatively people who fall so head over heals for an item that the price tag is a blur. Moreover, rather than benefiting from SALEs I think shoppers are playing into most retailer’s hands. Can you imagine how much they sell marking down a few price tags? Who’s to say that just because they are low in price, they aren’t high in profit? I wouldn’t even be surprise if they put items on SALE immediately after getting them in, shrewdly marking items down from their RRP. I don’t know the laws about how long after an item is released it can go on SALE, but at the very least retailers will surely put things on SALE as soon as they legally can.

The impetus behind this? People like thinking that they are smarter than anyone else. Proof of this? Where is there not proof of this? The fact that I’m writing this article smugly sitting behind this computer screen, is proof that it exists in me at the very least. People like believing that they are getting the best for their money, there is a huge amount of pride attached to it. If this weren’t true con-artists would be dying in the streets and programs telling us how to avoid con-artists would get very low ratings.

Of course, I’m not saying shopping for clothes is an equivalent for being conned. After all, we need clothes and it can be fun to browse (and I’m saying that as a man!). Sometimes though, we need to control the beast, that would ransack a shopping aisle in under six seconds. Shopping is like drinking, at best in moderation.

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