Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
I recently scouted out the holiday tool deals at my local Sears, and what I found confused me.
Surprisingly, the tool displays were up for a couple of days at most, but many were at least half empty. Others were full to the brim. Maybe the local Sears saw unusually high levels of foot traffic and tool interest in the couple of days the promo displays were up before my visit?
Are they saving some stock for later on in the holiday season? Did a very generous gift-giver or reseller snatch a whole lot of tools the day the promos hit the sales floor? What else could explain this?
I know how much foot traffic the local Sears store gets on a weekday, and just cannot imagine that this is the work of multiple individual shoppers.
The same thing happened last year!
Sorry, let’s get on with the focus of this post.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
A lot of Sears’ higher priced Craftsman tool deals give you an option. They’re offering this for their holiday sales, and they offered it during last year’s Black Friday promotions.
Option 1: You get the instant discount.
Option 2: You get a gift card for the amount of the discount, plus 10%, but must pay full price.
You have to “ask an associate for details,” but I’m thinking that the gift card is in the form of “points,” which wouldn’t be good as Shop Your Way points do expire.
Sears has offered similar deal options in the past, and I thought it was ridiculous before. It’s still ridiculous, if you ask me. But maybe that’s just me, which is why I’m asking for your opinion.
Would you rather spend $150 on a new drill and save $50 upfront, or spend $200 and get a gift card for $55?
I guess if I were buying more tools right away, then the extra gift card amount might be appealing.
But what if I had to return something? Let’s say I spent $200 on the drill and used the $55 on a socket set. If I return that socket set, part of the value would continue to be tied up in a gift card.
An extra $5 in this case doesn’t really seem worth it to me, what about you?
Would you take the instant discount or the higher value gift card?
I suppose that if the added gift card value was high enough, then I might consider it. But that would also mean that I would have to plunk down more money right away.
Let’s say there’s a $400 socket set or tool storage cabinet that’s on sale for half off. So that’s a $200 discount. Would you rather pay $200, or $400 and get a $220 gift card? even with an extra $20 hanging out with the gift card option, I think I’d be much happier with the instant discount.
