HIGH-STREET retailers are offering discounts as high as 86% to lure in
consumers hit by rising fuel and food prices.
Sales on the high street suffered their worst fall for two years in March,
down 1.6% on the previous year, according to the British Retail Consortium
(BRC), even though official figures suggested the picture was more rosy.
To counteract the slowdown, big names such as John Lewis, Boots, Woolworths
and Argos are offering huge discounts that have given rise to the phenomenon
of the “permanent sale”.
Richard Dodd of the BRC said: “The level of discounting is deeper, more
widespread and longer than it has been in living memory. The disposable
income of shoppers is falling, but for those with money in their pocket many
items are more affordable.”
The downside, if you hit the high street, is that it is pot luck whether you
stumble on a store with great discounts. However, a new breed of website can
help.
Specialist sites such as Myvouchercodes, which lists discount codes offered by
retailers, have enjoyed a big increase in traffic during the credit crunch.
Sales through the website have increased from £7.1m in January to £9.8m in
March.
Here we show you how to be a permanent sales shopper.
1 Find the latest offers
To unearth discounts on the high street, or simply browse for bargains, a good
site is offerofthe day.co.uk, which lists the top deals available at a given
time.
Last week there was a 75% discount on a coffee maker from John Lewis, taking
it from £79 to £19.95. Argos was offering 75% off a pair of double-headed
pliers and 56% off a sofa.
These discounts are updated regularly and the offers may be withdrawn within
hours. You can buy the products online by clicking through to the retailer’s
website, although the discounts are also available in store.
2 Find factory outlets
You can benefit from discounts of more than 70% if you shop at a retailer’s
factory outlet.
The gooddealdirectory.co.uk website lists a range of warehouses where products
from high-street retailers can be obtained at a discount. Generally the
warehouses pool unwanted stock from several retailers, but the site also has
an advanced search facility that allows you to find the factory outlet for a
specific brand. The Pier, for example, offers up to 70% off at its factory
outlet in Abingdon in Oxfordshire. It is open only on a Saturday.
Another website listing warehouse prices from the likes of Marks &
Spencer, John Lewis and Laura Ashley is trade-secret-club.co.uk. It lists
discounts up to 50% on cancelled and returned orders.
You have to pay a one-off membership fee of £10 to browse items online,
although there is a preview section offering nonmembers some idea of what’s
available.
Last week, an M&S table retailing at £599 from its catalogue was being
offered for £299 at the warehouse in Adderbury, near Banbury, in
Oxfordshire.
You can either pick up the item from the warehouse or buy online and pay a
delivery charge, usually around £50.
You can ask for a refund within 14 days if the goods are damaged, but if you
simply change your mind you will receive a credit note, worth the value of
your purchase, for use only in the warehouse.
Distance-selling regulations mean you can cancel an order if you decide
against it within a seven-day “cooling-off” period, starting the day after
delivery.
If you do cancel an order, the trader must refund your money within 30 days at
the latest.
3 Try the retailer’s auction websites
Although you can find bargains on auction websites such as Ebay, some
retailers have their own clearance auctions which offer end of line stock
which is new and boxed, as well as refurbished and ex-display goods.
Comet offers clearance items through clearance-comet.co.uk where you can bid
for items. Recently, a 42-in Philips plasma TV was auctioned off for £650–
half the price on the high street.
A good tip to get the best price is to wait until the last moment before
making your final offer. This will reduce the risk of other bargain hunters
beating your bid. On delivery, if the item is faulty or not what you
expected, you can return it within 28 days. Currys will offer a full refund
as well as arranging collection.
4 Head up north
If you live in the south, you can save thousands of pounds by shopping up
north. Noelle Walsh, who runs the gooddeal directory website, said: “Prices
for the same products are usually between 15%-20% cheaper north of
Birmingham.”
M&S, which has factory shops around the UK, also offers bigger discounts
up north. A leather sofa costing £1,399 could be obtained for £999 in the
London factory shop. In the Liverpool factory shop, though, the same sofa
costs only £699 – a 50% discount on the high-street price.
5 Buy in bulk
It is always cheaper to buy in bulk, though it is usually only businesses that
benefit. Some websites, such as giftclearance. com, allow consumers to order
items in bulk which can be useful for parties and other events.
The website is a clearance site for wholesalers who supply top retailers
countrywide and have stock left over. Products include candles, frames,
cards, glass, silverware, home furnishings, tableware and Christmas
decorations.
Though you have to buy in bulk, this usually means only 12 or 24 of an item
such as bracelets or candles. The price per item is very low – for instance,
a box of 24 bracelets can cost only £30. Prices are usually 20% to 65% lower
than on the high street.
6 Don’t pay over the odds for designers
You can get discounts on some top brand names such as Diesel and Ted Baker
using asseenon screen.com. This has a clearance section offering discounts
of 50% or more. Last week there was a Ted Baker satin shirt reduced from £75
to £36, while a Daniele Alessandrini roll-neck shirt was cut from £165 to
£99.
Another good website is brand alley.co.uk which alerts members to sales via
e-mail. It has established links with many top brands and sells unwanted
stock at a discount.
There are usually about 100 sales each year offering discounts of between 30%
and 70%. The discounts are only available through the website.
7 Find freebies
Websites such as freecycle.org have created online communities that exchange
or just give away unwanted goods – from dishwashers to CDs.
The site puts you in touch with people in your local area who want to give
away items rather than dump them in landfills.
You have to sign up to one of over 4,300 communities around the world, but
there are plenty in the UK. In London’s Hammer-smith and Fulham, for
example, there are 4,799 active members giving away everything from bikes to
greenhouses.
You usually have to collect the item, but as members are part of a local
community, you usually don’t have to travel far.
Other websites such as freestuffjunction.co.uk lists freebies offered as
introductory deals when you buy something else. Last week, lovefilm.com, the
online film-rental firm, was giving away 14 days’ membership, while Marie
Claire magazine offered three free issues if you signed up to a 12-month
contract.
8 Use a cashback site
Cashback sites such as Quidco.co.uk and greasy-palm. co.uk offer moneyback
offers if you make the purchase through them. Quidco offers a 10% discount
if you make HMV purchases via the site as well as 7% for John Lewis goods.
9 Discount codes
Sites such as sendmediscounts. co.uk and myvouchercodes.co. uk constantly
update users with discounts being offered by the likes of Dixons, John Lewis
and Threshers.
All you have to do is enter the pass code when you reach the checkout section
of the retailer’s website to get the savings.
You can, for example, get £40 off your Currys shop if you spend more than £549
using the code AWOFF40. If you spend over £1,000, you can get £100 off with
the code AWOFF100.
The codes are regularly updated and usually withdrawn in a few days, so it’s
worth checking regularly.
Other popular codes include a 50% discount on entry at Alton Towers and 10%
off at HMV.
Although most of the codes are for use when shopping online, there are also
lists of printable vouchers that can be taken to the high street. Myvoucher
codes, for example, is offering a 40% printable discount voucher for use at
Threshers.
10 Use a combination of the above
The savviest shoppers use a combination of comparison sites, discount vouchers
and cashback sites to get the biggest discounts.
Last week, a Sony DCR-DVD310 cost £379.99 from Currys. However, by using
Pricerunner you could find the same product for £249.99 at empire
direct.co.uk.
If you then used a discount website like Sendmediscounts, you can save a
further 10% with the code EM4553. This would bring your overall cost down to
£224.99.
If you bought the item through the cashback website Quidco, you would receive
a further 2% as cashback, saving you another £4.48 and bringing your total
bill to just over £220.
Finally, if you used a cashback credit card to make the purchase, you could
save more. The Barclaycard Platinum offers 0.5% cashback on most purchases
up to a maximum of £15 a month, giving you another £1.10 off the camcorder.
Your total saving, if you used the above combination, would be £162 – a 43%
discount.
SAVE £162 ON A £380 CAMCORDER
- A Sony DCR-DVD310 cost £379.99 from Currys last week. Using Pricerunner, you
pay £249.99 at EmpireDirect.co.uk.
- If you use a discount site like Sendmediscounts, you can save a further 10%
with the code EM4553. This would bring your overall cost down to £224.99.
- If you bought it through the cashback website Quidco you would receive a
further 2% back, saving you another £4.48.
- Finally, if you used the Barclaycard Platinum card, which offers 0.5%
cashback on most purchases up to a maximum of £15 a month, you’d get another
£1.10 off.
- Your total saving would be £162 – a 43% discount.
JUMPING FOR JOY OVER DISCOUNTS
SIMON GROVE, 42, a business-development manager, and his wife Sarah, 34, make
regular use of online discounts and comparison sites.
The couple, who live in Maidstone, Kent, and have two children, Nathan, three,
and Sophie, 13 weeks, recently saved £110 on a bouncy castle.
They used a discount voucher e-mailed to them by Tesco. Instead of paying
£200, they paid £90.
The couple say they have saved more than £1,000 in the past 12 months.
Simon said: ‘Using online discounts and signing up to websites so we get the
latest discounts sent to us by e-mail is a great way to cut costs.
‘Although you don’t always find what you’re looking for, you can still get
some great bargains.’
They recently bought a plasma screen TV from House of Fraser with a £300
discount – reducing the cost from £899 to £599.
You missed the biggest sites, Hotukdeals.com and Moneysavingexpert.com
Sue Russell, Newby Bridge,
Savings with bouncy castles and a plasma tv, you are already spending on luxury goods so a "saving" suits the conscience but does nothing about the bank balance
jane, Whittlesey, Cambs