Pennywise

"Pennywise and Pound foolish" ... goes the old English proverb ...
But thats what most of us are these days !
There is a store in Bangalore by the name Pennywise whose main USP is the "upto 50%" discount it offers. This is enough for crowds to throng the place.
Ofcourse the discount we realise is not 'flat' 50% , but a variable one with max of 50% for a few select items of clothing which no one wud buy even if it was given 100% discount. But then many ppl since they took the effort of stepping into the store , decide to buy something or other at a discounted price. Though in reality they may not actually need the stuff, just because it is available at a discount price ppl end up buying it !
Infact some stores have this tag line "Buy more,Save more!" what an amazing logic!!!
This seems to be a sureshot success strategy for all brands , though a good price for certain item of clothing wud be 'X'Rs , hype up the brand and put the price tag at '2X' or more and make it appear that the brand is out of reach for mere mortals.
The more highly its priced (though quality wise it may not be worth it) , the more awe it creates. But thats not all , the clever bit comes in when u sell it , you can't obviously make much money if u sell it at the marked price of '2X' Rs.
So u sell it with a special banners indicating some reason like "end of season Sale" (only the season lasts the whole year! ) and sell it at a discounted price of 20-40% over the hyped up marked price !
Which still means u make much more than the correct price "X" for the product !

Now Im firmly of opinion that the culprit here is not the clothes manufacturer but the end consumer who is more than happy to pay 1.2X for some brand which offers supposedly 'huge' discounts over its marked price rather than pay the correct price for another brand which makes same stuff and which has proper marked price 'X' and no discount but in reality 20% lesser (correctly priced infact)

In Tamil Nadu at this time of the year we see something called "Aadi Sale" with clothes vying with each other to offer tempting discounts and consumers enthused with the prospect of saving more with each purchase and loosening the purse strings ! The trend started with textiles and now have extended to Electronic goods shops also offer steep discounts during this time and volume of sales makes this the best season for them.Infact shopkeepers say that their sales see a 50 to 75% inc during "Aadi" month when compared to ordinary days.

Though I may be mistaken, but from what i remember 'Aadi' is an inauspicious month for Tamil ppl and hence in olden days ppl were not buying anything during that time and so the shop owners had to resort to the discounts and freebies , but today its the busiest season of the year !!!