Your thoughts on BOGO "Deals"??
4Just going through the weekly grocery store ads and see some are offering their occasional BOGO (Buy One, Get One) sales. I always say they’re just a marketing gimmick to make shoppers believe they’re getting an unbelievable deal which sometimes is true.
For me, every time I see BOGO FREE I automatically translate that in my mind to “Buy 2 items at 50% off each”. Same for the percentage off listings: BOGO 50% Off to me means “Buy 2 items at 25% off each”; BOGO 40% Off to me means “Buy 2 items at 20% off each”, and so on.
Anyone else apply this logic to sale prices this way or is it just me? Thoughts? 
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For as long as there has been advertising, there have been loss leaders. Buy them or not, the stores don’t care, they just want you to come in the door.
@Cerridwyn Well, if everyone is like me, they’ll go out of business! I usually only buy sale and marked-down items in this economy. Only pay retail for milk or bread if they’re not on sale. Frugality is my motto!
@Cerridwyn @MrGoodGuy Egg-zactly! I can only imagine how many sectors of the economy would collapse if everyone were like me.
/showme Anthropomorphized goat named cfg83 is happily counting his quarters while walking past multiple bankrupt storefronts.
@cfg83 Here’s the image you requested for “Anthropomorphized goat named cfg83 is happily counting his quarters while walking past multiple b…”
@cfg83 @MrGoodGuy I hear you but the stores still do it. That’s how you get your Thanksgiving turkey, or your Easter ham, and the margins at grocery stores is so much smaller than many people believe. Yeah the company as a whole still makes money and a boatload of it but it’s based on quantity.
@Cerridwyn @cfg83 @MrGoodGuy Basically, the model relies on having enough folks that buy more than just the low-margin or no-margin items to offset the “if everyone is like me”.
That said, there’s still more math than just the advertised price - but on the consumer’s side via ancillary costs. Sure, something may be way cheaper at this store or that store, but is it worth the extra time and fuel + vehicle wear to get there? Personally, the now defunct physical Amazon Fresh markets had some really low prices but my closest store was 20+ miles round trip. My local market would still be the better value even with a higher price on the shelf.
@cfg83 @MrGoodGuy @narfcake so very true. It’s why with few exceptions I buy what I want wherever I need to go instead of going the second place. I remember when gas was super cheap super super cheap like 12 cents a gallon. My father would plan his Saturday shopping route. And usually go to 2:00 to 4 stores to get what he wanted starting with the furthest away and working his way home. I’ve never been that dedicated. And as you say it wouldn’t save as much money these days as it did then. But since the average dentist in the United States cannot even add one plus one and get two without the calculator these days they can’t figure that out
I do the same all the time. When I see “buy one, get one 50% off” I translate that to “buy two for 25% off”.
@cfg83 same. I always have to break the math out. Too many people get scammed when they don’t. But I love the maths.
@cfg83 @sillyheathen …and a lot of the time, my purchase (or not) is based on whether I really two instead of one…
Hmmmm …
/showme Person with confused expression is looking at very complicated sale description in store window that includes calculus equations.
@cfg83 Here’s the image you requested for “Person with confused expression is looking at very complicated sale description in store window t…”
I completely agree on the math, and I make the same comparison every time I see one of those. Most of the time, I realize that the item on sale is something that I don’t use often enough for the extra unit to still be fresh enough by the time I get to it. The purchase doesn’t make any sense in that case. I pass up more of them than I buy.
Sometimes the BOGO deals are BOGUS…
And, be sure you pay attention to that small “of equal or lesser value” point. Unless your second item is exactly the same price, your 50% off each math goes out the window… This is especially true in restaurants where entrees will have dramatically different prices.
not sure where y’all scraped that image from, but those look Crazily familiar to me… having worked at meijer* for nearly 30 years, the colors, the Font, those are almost certainly meijer shelf tags…
*big box grocery/general Merch retailer, based in MI, operates in the great lakes states.(MI,OH,IN,KY,IL,WI, and soon western PA)
@earlyre Great eye!
I actually got them from their weekly ad and made a montage. 
@MrGoodGuy like I said… Almost 30 years working there…