eastender,
Your contention that a regularly stated price or one prior to a discount is over inflated or over priced is quite a leap to say the least.
Take as an example shopping center retailers, they must sell regularly priced (non discounted) full mark up items in order to turn a profit. It's at the beginning of the end of a season, for those items, is what's called planned scheduled mark downs begin to occur or if a particular item is what's called a dog & they do whatever is necessary price wise to get rid of it, ie mark it down as much as possible over a shorter period of time to remove it, as there is a price for everything.
Where coffee shops are concerned, if they are giving you a fifth cup of coffee free on an accumulated card they are basically giving you a 1/5 discount. You are absolutely correct in that a minority of the cards are redeemed as this is the accepted standard in retailing that these things aren't or the majority of them aren't redeemed so the cost of the card although it exists shouldn't be taken into any consideration as it may have been the cause in part of a client going into their establishment to purchase their product thus increasing their market share & that client who doesn't ever redeem the card has not received a discount. Take Canadaian Tire money, they are basically giving their cash paying clients (not cc's) 10% off but only for those that don't lose their money or can't find it in the bottom of their junk drawer until next July when they move again.
The Gap clothing stores didn't offer discounts or have any announced sales at all for many yrs of massive popularity only becasue they didn 't need to, as they sold out all their merchandise at full regular price & consequently racked up huge bottom line year end profits. This was considered by all other retailers to be a complete aberration & something that had never been seen in modern retailing, post WWll. I told you to invest in The Gap way back then.
Now as far as agencies are concerned, you'll never see any of them offer a discount when they are busy. They do it to ramp up business for them number 1 & also at times when they need to get their SP's more business so as to keep them. Are the prices inflated ? Sure we'd all like to pay less, no doubt but can they sustain a permanent price decrease over time, I say no as the SP's will leave to go elsewhere in search of the higher wage thus leaving that agency.
Your contention that a regularly stated price or one prior to a discount is over inflated or over priced is quite a leap to say the least.
Take as an example shopping center retailers, they must sell regularly priced (non discounted) full mark up items in order to turn a profit. It's at the beginning of the end of a season, for those items, is what's called planned scheduled mark downs begin to occur or if a particular item is what's called a dog & they do whatever is necessary price wise to get rid of it, ie mark it down as much as possible over a shorter period of time to remove it, as there is a price for everything.
Where coffee shops are concerned, if they are giving you a fifth cup of coffee free on an accumulated card they are basically giving you a 1/5 discount. You are absolutely correct in that a minority of the cards are redeemed as this is the accepted standard in retailing that these things aren't or the majority of them aren't redeemed so the cost of the card although it exists shouldn't be taken into any consideration as it may have been the cause in part of a client going into their establishment to purchase their product thus increasing their market share & that client who doesn't ever redeem the card has not received a discount. Take Canadaian Tire money, they are basically giving their cash paying clients (not cc's) 10% off but only for those that don't lose their money or can't find it in the bottom of their junk drawer until next July when they move again.
The Gap clothing stores didn't offer discounts or have any announced sales at all for many yrs of massive popularity only becasue they didn 't need to, as they sold out all their merchandise at full regular price & consequently racked up huge bottom line year end profits. This was considered by all other retailers to be a complete aberration & something that had never been seen in modern retailing, post WWll. I told you to invest in The Gap way back then.
Now as far as agencies are concerned, you'll never see any of them offer a discount when they are busy. They do it to ramp up business for them number 1 & also at times when they need to get their SP's more business so as to keep them. Are the prices inflated ? Sure we'd all like to pay less, no doubt but can they sustain a permanent price decrease over time, I say no as the SP's will leave to go elsewhere in search of the higher wage thus leaving that agency.
