Book Review: Bargain Fever by Mark Ellwood
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Summary:
Discounts are no longer the exception, they’re the norm. But is that bargain really a bargain?
Paying full price is so passé. A quarter of the population will only open their wallets if something is on sale. Everyone wants a deal, a steal, a hookup with a discount or a way to cut costs. People don’t only want a deep discount, they expect it and won’t settle for anything less.
They’re lucky, then, that almost half of everything sold in America is listed at some kind of promotional price. It’s a seismic shift that has made shoppers more savvy than ever, generating phenomena like extreme couponing, flash sales, and Groupon.
So there’s never been a better time to be a buyer, right? Perhaps. Sellers have developed their own tricks to protect profit margins amid such markdown mania—ones that include secret sales, shifting prices, and shredding perfectly good clothes.
In this playful, deeply researched book, journalist Mark Ellwood takes a trip into this new landscape. He shows how some people are, quite literally, born to be bargain junkies thanks to a quirk of their DNA, and uncovers the sales-driven sleights of hand that sellers employ to hoodwink unsuspecting buyers.
Ellwood takes us from the floor of upscale department store Bergdorf Goodman to the bustling aisles of a Turkish bazaar, from the outlet Disney world of rural Pennsylvania to a town in Florida that can claim to be couponing’s spiritual capital. We meet savvy buyers trying to wring value from every cent—stalking fashion editors’ tweets to learn about sample sales or camping out overnight for a cut-price computer.
Ellwood also uncovers the dark side of discounting: how organized crime steals coupons en masse and how certain boutiques limit discounts to VIPs,
running secret sticker promotions from which the ordinary shopper is excluded.
Bargain Fever is a manual for thriving in this new era, when deal hunting has gone from being a sign of indigence to one of intelligence. There’s never been a better time to be a buyer—at least if you know how the game works.
Review:
I thought this book offered a lot of good insight and explanation of the retail world – even touching on items such as airlines, hotels, and of course – the coupon craze that has birthed reality shows and the popularity of sites such as Groupon and Living Social. Sometimes I paged through quickly, my interest not being kept high enough to really get the background of past retail stores and the like. The sections that did interest me were the ones that pertained to me – Groupon, travel discounts when flying, even hotels. It was interesting to get a predication of the future of these coupon-like sites, and some background on them in general. While I didn’t really take away what I thought I would (firm tips on how to save while shopping) it was a unique take on the Bargain Fever our country seems to have.
