The Anatomy of Sales, Clearance and Retail, Part 1: Price Watching

"Fasion is not a luxury, it's a right." This would be the slogan for Sarah Jessica Parker's new line for Steve & Barry's called Bitten. Everything in the clothing line is less than $20 and most of it is extremely cute. I will be making a trek to Steve & Barry's tomorrow to see it up close and personal and I am very excited. Which brings me to the subject of bargain shopping.

It's one thing to say that you only buy things on sale. But when that sale is at Nordstrom, it's still hella more expensive than my budget allows. I work in retail, I know the secret of a sale. Now this may not be true for all retailers, but it's been pretty accurate for most places I shop:

If there is a sticker of a sale price on the tag, chances are that if you wait it out, the price will go down even further. Waiting for prices to drop can be tricky because if your size is not in the majority, chances are that they will run out of that size. Most retail establishments have the ability to transfer merchandise between stores, utilize this when necessary.

I have only two stores in which I price watch and those would be Burlington Coat Factory and DSW Shoe Warehouse. The reason for those two seemingly random stores? I can visit them every day of the week. They are located in the shopping mall where I work and it takes me about 5 mins to peruse each store and check things out. Shopping lunches are particularly enjoyable and I suggest them to anyone and everyone.