One wonders how they get away with this stuff.

Just got a Memorial Day sale mailer from a major Department Store. Looked inside and found an add for 25% off Citizen watches. One of the watches is the Skyhawk pictured above.

The flyer claims a "regular" price of $650.00 and with the 25% off it comes to $485.00. I wonder where they get their "regular" prices because the Skyhawk has a suggested list price from the manufacturer of $599.00 - in fact they are shipped with a price tag in that amount. From time to time we put our watches on sale at 20% off which means you would pay $479.00 for a Skyhawk at Chimera Design - six bucks less than the Major Department Store.

Gee whiz - how can my 20% off sale give you a net price that is less than their 25% off sale? Oh, I see now - they mark it up to mark it down and still charge more than we do!

The reason I like to point this kind of thing out to you is my attempt to educate you about the games that are played with prices and discounts. The fact of the matter is that retail stores have to make a certain amount of profit to stay in business. There is nothing wrong with making a profit, but it is wrong to mislead people with artificial prices and discounts which really amount to the Major Department Store (in this case) making more profit than we do - even though it looks like they are discounting the item MORE than we are.