Sunday, January 4, 2009

Discounts...Oh Really?!?

While my shopping continues, I come across one after another shocker from the retailers in Muscat...this time it's the BHS outlet (Oh yes, the graphic details will not be withheld this time!)...

First they use a conversion factor of 0.9-0.95 for the Sterling to the Omani Rial (by converting GBP 50 to OMR 45 and GBP 40 to OMR 38)...and this time they've just gone too far, even if for a single product...

I went to BHS a couple of weeks ago...and saw jackets over there...there was a grey moleskin jacket for OMR 45.000....no surprises except that it was converted from GBP 50...

Now they put up a sale with good discounts on quite a few jackets...except that the only sizes you see on the racks are S,M, and then 2XL...there was no trace of L or XL in all designs except one...looks like they take away the nice ones when the discounts go up....not surprising to say the least...

And to top it up, the grey moleskin jacket is now tagged as...any guesses? here goes:

Was 90.000
Now 45.000

surprise surprise...the jacket was NEVER ever at OMR 90...in fact 45.000 is the price it was actually selling for without any discounts.

Have ethics and morals disappeared from these idiots? If they dont want to discount it, they can just stuff it with the other non-discounted stuff and say "Not included in sale"...but the deception to lure in the customer with "discount" that is not at all there is nothing but deceit and cheating. Simple as that.

I think the Ministry of Commerce should look into such dishonest practices...the retailers need to get Ministry approval before putting a sale...they should also submit price lists to the ministry and specify the discounts etc...

Other than that, there's little way out other than consumer awareness...perhaps some of the media houses should highlight such practices?

9 comments:

Ali Hassan Al Lawati said...

you are right,

I never believed "Discounts" or "sale" tags on any stores in Oman


just check some shopes in Ruwi the whole year they have the tag "special sale" !!!!,

these words are now just tricks to make novice people buy their stuff with higher prices

Amjad said...

This reminds me of the suits shop in Muscat City Center, I forgot its name but they are two suit shops next to each other which have sales almost all the year. Literally. You'd find them saying 75% discount all year long. They would tell you that the price of the suit before discount was 300 rials, after discount 75 rials!

I actually bought a suit from them once, and every single time I went there they had a sale. Probably the actual price of the suit is 75 rials but they have this 300 rials before discount all year long to attract people :)

Twister said...

Amjad, the shops in City Centre (Pierre Cardin, Domani, Verri, Azzaro, Ted Lapidus) are all franchises of the Paris Group, an Abu Dhabi-based company. The tags on their products say prices 4 times the price they sell at, that's because the actual prices for Pierre Cardin etc do tend to float in the stratosphere...(the markups on garments easily exceed 500% for many brands)...they bring in the excess stock from the european side and sell it at lower prices...

What irks me in this case is that BHS had the product tagged for 45...and in the sale they make it "Was 90, now 45"...which is deceptive conduct, and coming from a relatively large retail establishment makes it even worse...

Hearts and Hands for Nepal said...

this article reminds me of our first trip to Carrefour after arriving in Oman. It was during Ramadan, so they were having the big "RAMADAN SALE!" and I picked out a set of plates, but the boxes were pretty beat up so we went to the actual dish aisle to see if we could find a better box. When we got there the original price was 3 rial cheaper than the sale price! Unbelievable. That was one of my many "welcome to Oman!" moments.

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