Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Is Kohl's training me to wait for discounts?

About once a month we get a marketing piece from Kohl's in the [snail] mail with a peelie on it that says you can either get an additional 15, 20, or 30% off your purchases.

Every single time until today I've always gotten 15%. Then I throw it in the garbage thinking -- why would I go get 15% off if there are 30% coupons out there. Today I finally got a 30% off and thought -- "ok, maybe I'll use this."

So my question to my wife (and now to you all) is whether the Kohl's promotion is good or bad for business. They've been using this same promotion for at least a few years. Are they just conditioning me to never buy anything unless I have a 30% (or even 15% off) coupon?

Same thing happened to Linens N Things. They totally conditioned me to never shop without a coupon. Because the coupons were everywhere! (And now look where they are!)