JC Penney has announced some interesting changes to its pricing structure. It is effectively eliminating sales, except for seasonal price reductions on certain types of items and clearance for things that haven’t sold after a certain period. I think this kind of move is long overdue. I’m not much of a shopper, but I’ve noticed the tendency for many retailers to wildly mark up their prices and then try to move merchandise in large batches by offering sale prices that better represent the actual value of the product.
Oddly, most of the consumers I’ve encountered seem to revel in this situation. It gives the impression that when they spot sale items they are securing tremendous discounts over the expected price. But as JC Penney is tacitly admitting by changing its pricing structure, retailers never truly expected merchandise to move at those prices in the first place.
I don’t know exactly what market research or projections Ron Johnson, CEO of JC Penney’s parent company Apple, based this decision on. It could be that the company has determined that more consumers are interested in reliable pricing than are interested in the illusory feeling of having scored a great deal. Or maybe they are gambling on this transition on the expectation that if they can get customers used to that change it will be better for their bottom line in the long run.
Either way, I personally hope that this signals a positive change in consumer behavior – a shift away from making purchasing decisions based on savings and towards making them based on value. Consumers risk allowing themselves to be manipulated if they get excited over buying something at fifty percent off, when the normal price was double what it should have been. The thrill of discovery can override the rationality that might otherwise make you stop and consider whether what you’re paying for was worth the inflated price, and whether it’s even worth the price of the sale.
If you want to buy something, it should be based on what the product is, not on how the momentary act of acquiring it makes you feel. It is the same with bargain hunters as it is with some people who choose to buy sustainable products or items touting themselves as being green alternatives. If you make such a purchasing decision because you derive a sense of superiority or individuality from the tags and buzzwords attached to a product, you’re doing it for the wrong reason. If you buy green on the basis of feelings rather than information, you risk being manipulated by greenwashing of products that do nothing, or that do harm.
Whether you buy sale items or take advantage of new, more reliable pricing structures, you’d better have a sense of the true value of the product. Similarly, if you buy green, you’d better make sure that the specific products you spend your money on will do legitimate good for the environment. Don’t buy bamboo just because it seems new and because the people in your social circle are all buying it. Rather, buy it because of what its growth rate says about its sustainability and the amount of output possible with limited use of arable land and relatively little energy. Buy it because of the ability of the crop to help reverse global warming. And once you’re confident in those reasons, buy it because it’s also a great product.
None of this is intended to say that you shouldn’t feel good when you buy something. But that should be secondary to a rational assessment of a product’s value. And doesn’t that make the good feelings all that much more gratifying? If you find a sale price and you’re sure that the item is worth much more than that, wouldn’t you feel better about your savings? If you bought a green product that you know really does for the planet what its packaging claims, wouldn’t you feel better about yourself? Making intelligent purchasing decisions and feeling good about them should never be mutually exclusive. A consumer should feel best buying what really is best.
It’s my hope either that this new JC Penney pricing structure indicates that consumers are already starting to shop based on rationality instead of feeling, or that it pushes them towards doing so. If you’re a customer of theirs, I don’t quite know which to expect, or how quickly you’ll come around to a better way of shopping. However, if you’re a customer of Green Earth Bamboo, I like to think that you already know the true value of the things you buy.
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