The SECRET Ways Retailers Get You To Spend More!

Plus, some major tips to save on Furniture and at Dollar Tree!

Author

Matt Granite
June 03, 2024

It’s officially summer and for our household, this is often the season of unexpected expenses - whether it’s a home improvement project or last minute trip with the kids.

The focus of this week’s newsletter to help you stay on budget are tips and tricks to stay one step ahead of retailers - and remain extra frugal this season.

🤫 5 Retailer Tricks Making You Spend More In Store

Odd Numbering Of Items: Have you ever tried to compare the number of Cascade pods in a package at Costco to the number you would receive from Sam’s Club? Brands enter into agreements with different retailers and offer specifics versions of their products or bundle home to make a price-to-price comparison extremely difficult. Even Amazon, which owns Blink and Ring Security cameras, will bundle its products in obscure ways where the warehouse club deal is way better than what Amazon offers - provided you need two extra cameras and a siren.

Tricky Product Placement: Stores are notorious for placing a specific product they want you to buy between two lesser appealing items. A more expensive product on the left and an item with worse features (or inferior ingredients if it’s a grocery store), pressures a consumer to select what’s front and centre, even if it’s not truly the best of the three.

The Bargain Bins: What you’ll often encounter right before you pay at a grocery store, on the various random racks near the self check-outs, or those bins that sometimes look like a huge clearance sale, are not doing you any favors. Stores heavily really upon impulse buys from consumers and in my household we try to put our blinders on and stroll right by.

Sample Station Pressure: While I am personally a huge fan of free food offerings, sample stations are designed for two different reasons. The first is to get you to spend more time in a store, increasing the likelihood you’ll make additional purchases. The other sometimes unavoidable repercussion of a sample station is feeling “guilted” into making a purchase or feeling obligated to “try it at home” since you were graced with a freebie.

White-Labeling: Have you noticed lately that stores now offer their own in-house brand of virtually every product? While sometimes the “house version” of a particular item is exceptional, (think of Kirkland or Member’s Mark), it makes it very difficult to compare such a product price-wise.

🖥️ 4 Hidden Ways Online Retailers Do The Same

Sale Countdown Tickers: Have you ever seen one of those countdowns showcasing the very limited amount of time left for you to claim a deal? In many cases those countdowns are designed specifically for you to apply pressure, and the so-called “deal” will not actually expire. These countdowns are very common for Facebook advertising and in most cases that “once in a lifetime deal” will repeat the second you clear your cache or log-on with a different IP address.

Buy Three, Pay For Two: This tactic that builds upon the ‘fear of missing out’ many shoppers experience with a BOGO deal is different. In this case a store is sometimes encouraging the consumer to stockpile three products when they really only need one item to begin with.

App Notifications: Have you ever noticed that app notifications seem to come at the perfect time? How does your favourite store know when you’re nearby, searching for items on your shopping list or ready to skip doing the dishes and opt for take-out? My wife disabled all of the notifications on her favourite shopping apps and she has enjoyed a bit of the break from what she describes as psychological shopping pressure.

Free Shipping Thresholds Online: This is one of the nastiest tricks of the trade. Websites use Ai and do their math way in advance. Minimum spend requirements often leave the average shopper just a few dollars short of free shipping. To dodge that sometimes $12 shipping fee (or more), a shopper might feel compelled to add another $20 item to their shopping cart (when they were only a few dollars short to begin with). It’s annoying.

🖥️ Save MAJOR $$$ On Furniture With One Click

(THIS IS NOT SPONSORED)

Dupe.com is a website helps you seek out affordable alternatives to high-end furniture and decor. All you have to do is simply paste the URL of an expensive product into the Dupe.com search bar and the website will then scour the internet for look-alike products, enabling you to find the best deal.

Look at how much cheaper the alternatives are!

As an example, I found this extremely high priced accent chair on Crate&Barrel for $999 and then pasted its URL into Dupe.com. After a few seconds, I was provided with 5 or more alternatives from other retailers at significantly cheaper price (and some with as much of a 95% price difference 🤯). You can even see my exact search here!

My only recommendation would be to enjoy this free service on a browser other than Google Chrome or you may otherwise encounter relentless requests to download their extension.

📦 Did you know the Amazon App can do this too?

Even many frequent Amazon shoppers are unaware of a dupe-searching trick built right into the app and website. While the outcome is similar, the alternatives with which you are presented are limited to Amazon-only products.

All you have to do is either take a photo of a real-life object or upload a screenshot of a web page for the item you’re looking to save money on, and then Amazon’s search engine will scour Amazon.com to find you a cheaper version. It even works for clothing!

To test this out, I took a screenshot of some shoes my wife has been eyeing from Nordstrom. I uploaded a screenshot of the webpage into the app’s built-in tool, and then BOOM, it promptly found shoes on Amazon that looked almost identical for more than half the price!

  1. 🔥 $70 Portable Charcoal Grill Deal at Lowe’s!

  2. 🌳 UP TO 50% OFF Outdoor Clothing and Equipment Sale

  3. 🧳 3 Piece Hardside Luggage Set (Now down to $89.99!)

  4. 📦 50% OFF Sam’s Club Membership

  5. ☀️ Up to 60% OFF Outdoor Furniture at Home Depot (Limited Time)

**If you buy something through these links I may get a small share of the sale. Click here to learn more

👀 NEWSLETTER EXCLUSIVE

If you’re an avid Dollar Tree shopper then you’re going to love this part of the newsletter! Here are two exclusive Dollar Tree tips and tricks that I’ve never shared before in my YouTube videos..

📌 The Best Store In Your Area Is One Click Away!

I often get YouTube comments from viewers unable to locate some of the items I feature in my videos. Some of you have even asked if I am shopping at some secret well-stocked corporate store. I think it’s about time I told you my big secret!

I approach my Dollar Tree hauls with this simple premise: the more square footage a Dollar Tree Store has, the more likely corporate is to fill it with more employees and also more stock. As you can guess, the larger Dollar Tree stores often carry the more exciting items that a regular or smaller-sized store may not have room for. The best part is there’s an easy way to find those magical stores in your area!

Dollar Tree’s website makes this easy!

All you have to do is search your zipcode on this dedicated Dollar Tree web page and then make sure to tick most of the “Store Amenities” boxes underneath the search bar until you find the most “decked-out” location in your area.

Here is where the amenities of a specific store are listed

The more amenities the store has (like bagged ice and refrigerated foods), the higher the chance is that particular store is larger to accommodate those features, and it’s likely the merchandise is also more impressive.

🎄 How To Get The Best Seasonal Items

Do you ever see people posting amazing seasonal decor and serveware from the Dollar Tree, only for it to be nowhere in sight when you get to the store?

This trick is simple and easy to remember!

Dollar Tree places its new stock for each holiday/festive season around ONE MONTH prior to the actual season occurring. For example, Christmas items will hit store shelves the first week of November, and you’ll see Halloween-themed decor around the last week of August.

A small bonus tip is that if you’re okay with waiting and you want to save a significant amount on decor for the following year, Dollar Tree places all of their seasonal items on clearance the day RIGHT AFTER that season occurs. These items are 50% OFF at minimum, so the savings really can add up!

🚨 MY LATEST VIDEO

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this newsletter. If there are any topics you want me to prioritize for next week, please let me know!

Happy Savings!👋

The Deal Guy (Matt Granite)