to think we must be being ripped off... if they can afford such slashed prices?

[JjandtheBeanlovesUnicorns]

Been pondering this for some time but just recently, well today its really made me question the mark up on items,

In asda today,

Peppa pig deluxe house and figures £5.49 usual rrp is around £30

Peppa pig grocery truck and figure and fire engine and figure £1.88 usual rrp is £9.99

Little mummy fisher price stroller. £2.30 Searched amazon for it and its £24.99!!

Don't get me wrong I'm chuffed at my baragains ready for dds birthday/christmas but AIBU to think the usual mark up is ridiculous and by doing such sales they're just showing us so.

Toys are extortionately priced. The plastic nowadays is thin, brittle and not up to the job.
We are being ripped off, but such is life.

the only thing to do is to refuse to buy all the crap in the first place. Our kids don't need it and we can't afford it. Simple!!

thats below cost selling, either they are a loss leader or they are off loading old stock to free up costly storage space. You don't understand sales and marketing.

off to asda

but i suppose they are making way for xmas, halloween and bonfire night

Agree with Siamo,

They are either dropping prices to clear the stock, as sales are below plan and they can't hold this stock for another season, or they are using the items to draw you in, in the hope that you'll buy a matching range of items/accessories at full price, or something else in the store.

Those prices are unbelievable - it costs more than that per item to ship them on a container ship from Hong Kong.

What's sad is that if these companies don't reach their margin targets then people in the Retail sector will lose their jobs as they make cuts to claw back profit...

also you are doing them some 'free' advertising as you are telling people about your bargins and suckers like me will go and spend more than just the bargin i went in for

If the RRP is £10, the shop probably paid £5 for each one. Say they buy 100 - if they then sell 50 of them at £10, they have made their money back. So they can then afford to drop the price on the remaining ones to get rid of them and free up shelf space for the next piece of plastic tat.

So, yes there's a markup, but it doesn't mean they only cost the shop the sale price, because on average they'll be getting more than that back on them.

And they'll still be making a profit on that £5.49 Peppa Pig toy. Retail mark ups are shocking!

No I don't understand sales or marketing so thank you for the informative replies,

The those off to asda these weren't even near the toy isle, just tucked in next to car/stationary bits lol.

Don't shops usually sell at 3 x cost price? That's what I heard somewhere. So they can cut to 50% off and still make a profit. They will only sell at 75% off to get rid of unwanted stock quickly or as a loss leader as Siamo pointed out - like selling beans at 1p a tin - they know they won't make a profit, it's just a hook to get you into the store so they can promote other stuff at you.

Well many of my friends and I fell for the free advertising, I told one friend she told a few more... Peppa pig is hot topic among dds friends though and for the past 18mnths I've refused her the house on the basis it was overpriced plastic

Oh when I said 3 X cost price I meant 3 X wholesale price - that's the price ASDA buys them from the wholesaler for, not the price it costs the manufacturer to make them, which would be about 0.0002p.

I worked for ELC as a buyer, and that really isn't a rip off. Toys make a ridiculously low margin compared to fashion (although higher than food). It's not a clear £5 profit if an item costs £5 and you sell it for £10. You normally make a maximum of 55% on a licencsed toy. As materials get more scarce the cost prices in China are rising rapidly. License product means there is a brand name associated with it so you have to pay a fee for the use of the name Peppa Pig to the people who created and own the brand.

That's quoting a clear margin of 55% which is selling price minus VAT minus cost price, (eg. £10 - minus 17.5% = £8.25 minus cost price of £3.71 gives you £4.54) It doesn't include the cost of paying my team to select it, order it and get shipping from China, paying to clear it through customs, driving to a warehouse, putting on the shelves, a person to allocate it, transporting it to the store, shop asst unpacking and displaying, the lights, rent, wages, electricity, marketing and everything else. I think people would be surprised at how little profit you scrape off with all the added costs of people, logistics and overheads.

I would just enjoy it while it lasts lol...I'm in global branded sportswear now...and that's a rip off!

Ooh, I must indulge my pet rant of the morning week month lifetime: I loathe Supermarket "offers" and "club card rewards" and BOGOFs, and X many extra points if you spend $$$ and all that crap. I do actually understand "XX% off!" as loss leaders & stock clearance, but the other standard practices are no-effective-net-savings & friggin' manipulation. Give me simple consistent low prices pile-em-high-&-sell-them cheap [Continental chain store] style instead, any day.

each to their own

i have set foot once in a continental chain store and came out feeling unclean :)

I just shop where i normally shop then at the end of the year spend all the money off clubcard tokens on the christmas shop. I usually get around £100 off. I would still shop there whatever so its just a bonus

YABU to have such good bargains in your ASDA lol. I've just been to ours and there was nothing like that :(

maggots are you going to enter for The Apprentice?

ROFL at "I'm in global branded sportswear now" but haven't noticed that the rate of VAT changed eight months ago. Nor knows how to calculate it.

The sort of thing that happens to me, Scrambed, is I patiently go around the shop adding the amount up to get my extra Nectar points (this is obv. a Sainsbury thing)... then I forget to use the sodding coupon at the Self-Service checkout (about 200 reasons why this happens).
The coupon is for more money than I normally spend in a week and expires after 7 days.
And you cannot then redeem it after all by waving receipt at customer service.
Or I DO remember the coupon in time, but the self-service machine can't accept it for some reason, and the customer services people have just closed out their till so they can't help, either.

And it isn't really a bonus, is it? It's a pretend-freebie; if you don't collect reward points and somebody else does, then you effectively subsidise their shopping bill. The Whole Reward Card thing is vile market manipulation.

All the anti-supermarket arguments I've read in past washed over me & didn't ring true, but this one has turned me into a ranting looney

I need to read all that information when I've spent less time in the sun. My eyes just crossed, ill check back in the morning! Thanks for the info its really very insteresting!