A drop dead bargain? You better not believe it!

Being self-aware of your materialistic habits can be a great help when it comes to valuing the amount of time and money we put in order to get the best deals. Some big brands have seen their names go big thanks to their limited edition of multiple discounted brand new items. With the excuse of them being just leftovers from the previous season, some of the most famous high-end brands seem to have a huge amount of products for less than half the price.

Is there anything we are missing?

Today in Chatswithmycat, I reveal one the reasons why some luxurious products are so cheap despite being extremely expensive in the original retail store.

This idea came to me after I finished watching a video from Canadian television (on the Youtube channel CBC News). During the episode, the journalists and quality experts expose the disappointing explanation of why the price that some outlets offer can be so different.

If you live in a fairly big city, there are probably a couple of important outlet stores that you can visit during the year. They offer “high quality” and brand new items at pretty affordable prices. We talk about brand new luxury items with juicy discounts of up to 85 %. Nice…Just imagine finding the cute $500 tote bag you saw on Elle magazine and bring it home for only $120. Sounds satisfying!

However, over the last Black Friday there was some speculation about the quality of the items on sale in comparison with the quality of the same items before the famous day. Some customers were accusing important companies (particularly electronic ones) of creating their products with lower quality and selling them for a cheaper price.

That amazing computer you were spying on like a hawk, holding up to get it at a lower price looked the same after you brought it home, but however, the tools and parts that composed it were cheaper!

If the speculation was true, it would mean that thousands, if not millions of customers were scammed due to this hidden information. Most of them waited for that particular season in order to buy the product with an attractive discount. Nobody said anything about the change in quality!

After that, I watched on the mentioned video how some “brands” were purposely creating lower quality items in order to send them directly to Outlet stores and make their brand seem more accessible.

Interesting…during the Youtube video, a couple of Quality Experts examine the items from the retail store and compares them with the ones from the outlet store. At some point, one of the experts said something both interesting and full of common sense that clicked on my mind:

“If something is cheap, is because is made for it to create a profit with that price, which means it was made to be cheap”.

The bag that you brought home for $100, was made to be sold and create a profit even with the crazy discount.

A few brands are very open about the topic and don’t mind sharing the reality: they create some of their products for retail stores. Others don’t want to risk their status and furthermore try to avoid the subject.

If you have decided to splurge in a basic item (a wallet, for example) that you want to last and use for years, you may prefer going to the authentic retail shop during sale season and get it for the higher price instead of waiting for it to make it’s way to the outlet store.

That said, I personally don´t think every single item we find in TK Maxx has a lower quality than the original one. But it’s a fact that a few ones work that way and we don’t know how many of them operate this way.

In conclusion: Be careful! There is just too many hidden information and we can’t know if the products we buy during sales season are really a bargain or just an average quality item with a prestigious brand on the label.