alt text
Red guy and Blue guy sitting at an empty lemonade stand.
Red guy: “maybe we should have a sale?”
Blue guy: “But we can’t go any cheaper!” while pointing to the “$1” price tag on the sign above him.
Red guy, while writing on a board, looks confused and replies: “cheaper?”
Final panel: The lemonade stand is rushed by hundreds of customers throwing cash and scrambling for lemonade, a fire breaks out, it’s chaos. In the foreground the sign Red was writing reads: “WAS $25, NOW ONLY $1”
by @loadingartist@mastodon.world (source)
Illegal in the UK
And Most of the EU, and Nz and Aus…
But that is the case for so many posts about shady business practises.
It’s funny how US corps can still operate and make a profit in these markets…
Illegal in the US too. Watch out for weasel wording to get around the laws though.
“Compare to $25”
“A $25 value”
“Our lowest price ever”
“Hot Buy”
Notice how none of those actually say it’s cheaper than it was before.
Businesses and corporations choose their words very carefully, and people should stop trying to interprete or read between the lines in many cases.
„Our lowest price ever“ means exactly and exclusively that, nothing more, nothing less.
It sounds like a deal, but it’s often the highest price they’ve ever had as well.
It can also be factually true. For example it’s their lowest price ever on model TX-56YB, only available on Black Friday.
TX-56Y for the rest of the year has totally been cheaper.
Walmart is the worst at this, which is why I would never buy a TV there.
And yet still totally happens.
we live in a society
“Waste your Money” Day
Oh, there was so much of this bullshit by amazon in particular that it’s disgusting.
Shit I had sitting in a list that I know exactly what the prices are suddenly went up about two months ago, and went back to the price they were when I put them in the list as the “sale” price.
I’m not saying everything was done that way, but there was a shit ton of it happening.
Happened on other sites as well, but it’s more obvious on amazon because of lists and how they help memory
Ah, the old Chinese discount trick.
Why Chinese?
Because it is illegal in the US and Europe, but you can go on AliExpress for example and find this practice everywhere
Edit: thought you were the original commenter. Realise you aren’t, this isn’t directed at you.
Is it illegal federally in the US? I keep seeing commenters say it isn’t. And if I’ve read things correctly, I’m pretty sure it is illegal in China, and in 2020 they further clamped down on it.
Not saying it doesn’t still happen because shitty people exist everywhere, including China.
It’s just your comment comes across as kinda racist because you’ve dubbed it as a specifically “Chinese” thing, even though it’s pretty widespread in many places.
Sorry to break your bubble. It is an international technique.
