What they say and what they mean.
Special purchase - Cheap tat
purposely made to be offered as a "special purchase"
Huge Savings - Against
deliberately inflated prices.
Typical Selling Price - An
inflated price designed to make the saving look better. The term "typical
selling price" or its close relative "suggested" are a misdirection,
designed to befuddle the recommended retail price legislation.
Buy 3 for 2 - The price for
two, is the price three were before the offer started.
If you see a suspiciously
expensive, yet under specified product, it is likely to be being price
established. This allows the retailer to offer a legitimate yet entirely
misleading saving at a later date.
Save up to 50% - There is a
proportion of products that must have had this saving applied, however these items
usually consist of high margin, low ticket priced items, and goods that have been
through the price establishing process.
Prices Match Guarantees.
Cached in exclusions, the most common in the electrical sector being the
"exclusive model" get out. The addition, substitution or removal of a model
number prefix / suffix is enough to make an otherwise identical model
different, meaning the price match will not apply. The delivery options must also be the same. So if the competitor doesn't offer free delivery to the Moon on alternate transits of Venus, then I'm sorry we can't match that price,
Fully Guaranteed Exchanged
Items / B Grade. Crap the manufacturers won't take back because a vital piece
of polystyrene packing is missing. It will be intermittently faulty.
Display Items - General. Poked and
pawed at by hammer handed, ice cream eating children. It will have an
additional and completely free layer of Mr Sheen. Parts will be missing. As
will the box. And the instructions. And the power adapter you need. A replacement universal one will
be provided, the use of which invalidates the warranty.
Display Items - Requiring a
remote control. If, by some miracle you do get the correct remote there will be
the remnants of brown tape over the battery cover. It will also look like it
has been a comforter for a teething Staffordshire bull terrier. More likely,
the remote you get is a "best guess remote". Half the functions won't
work but you've been assured a replacement has been ordered. It will never
arrive.
Display Items - Computers.
The cursory attempt to remove the Shop Demo by the instore “experts” will
result in there being at least two administrator accounts on your nominally new
machine, one of which you’ll never be able to remove. Any trial software,
pre-installed on the machine (crap and all as it is) will have long since
expired, meaning you will be festooned with pop-ups reminding you it has
expired. As they no longer supply an operating system disk which, would allow
you to do a full restore, you are reduced to uninstalling this infernal crap, leaving
behind rogue registry keys, file associations and odd documents referring to
someone's "boobies".
Managers Specials – You’d be
better advised taking your chances in the electrical product recycling skip at
your municipal dump.
