In Minnesota it is illegal to advertise a "going out of business" sale unless you are actually going out of business. Otherwise I don't think there are any restrictions.
If there were laws stating that advertised "sales" had to represent an actual reduction in price, every retailer in America would be in jail right now.
GP, LOL. No laws like that. I've seen stores mark things up to put them on "sale". Doofy's right.
why does this annoy you? I'd think the idiot assumption is correct!
Well, their idiot assumption may be correct, but idiot or not I am still annoyed at them treating me like one :-).
I think the UK law if I remember rightly (maybe greg knows) is that something has to have been on sale at the regular price for 30 days before you can reduce it and claim it is on sale. The way around that is to put it on sale at one obscure branch of your store for 30 days before putting it on sale everywhere...
I've seen stores mark things up to put them on "sale".
Oh hell yes, now if I could only convince my wife of this. But I guess it's all part of the thrill of the hunt.
I think there are "bait and switch" laws in the states, which require that you actually have the item at the advertised price. But that's gotten around by having limited quantities in stock.
Doofy, I had to tell my cousin about Kohl's doing that. He was looking at some of those unbreakable Corelle dish sets...Kohl's had them on "sale" for KMart's regular everyday price.
I advised him to wait for KMart to put them on sale if he wasn't in a hurry. Pretty much everything in a big-box store goes on sale every 6 weeks or so.
GP - do they have coupons in Europe? I freaking hate coupons. Just put the damn thing on SALE. Heh. And by that, I mean actually reduce the regular price.
It's all marketing tactics to create interest and a feeling of "need to get it now". Even though I know it, I still succumb at times.
Need to take a shower & get to Bed Bath & Beyond to use a coupon!
Well it's 15 years since I lived in Europe, but I do think of coupons on the industrial scale they exist here as an American thing.
And I will say this in favor of America sales - we once went to a big store here looking for tennis gear for my son that was on sale, and they had run out of the sale item, so they offered to let me choose a different one at the same sale price. Would NEVER happen in England, where customer service is more often of the deceased parrot variety.
(Another time in the same huge store I saw a winter coat I wanted, with 70% off. I also noticed that it had the wrong price tag on it - all the similar ones were $80 and this one said something like $25 and was clearly for the wrong item. But this was the style I wanted so I took it to the checkout, pointed out that the price was wrong but said if she could check the real price I'd like to buy it. She called her supervisor, confirmed the price was wrong, and then proceeded to sell it to me for 70% less than the lower price, the one on the wrong tag. Despite being British I quit asking questions at that point and got it for around $10, and it was a good coat. If England were like that, Monty Python would have been short of material).
I hate rebates even more than coupons. They are even more cynically manipulative.
Hey everybody - a very Happy Thanksgiving to all. Was happy to find that eMu still has a large selection of Anonymous 4 albums, the point being they are one of my favorite chant type groups, which I discovered on eMu in the old days, and they have some very nice holiday appropriate albums - I'm going to pick up medieval Hungary. Anyhow, it is great "chill" music, and makes me feel good while reflecting on how much I have to be really thankful for this year. Have a Happy and to the non-turkey crowd on the other side of the pond equal good wishes.
@GP Many retail stores will claim something is on sale, but if you look closely, it's the shelf tag price, but in giant yellow and red colors. I say that from working at retail including Meijer, were I'd have to put up sale signs every Saturday night. Guess they assume at least people will grab something if they think it's on sale.
Amazon is really sketchy sometimes with gold box deals when they talk about savings over retail price instead of their previous price which can be quite different.
@GPshudders I'd forgotten all about rebates. Don't see too many of them anymore, since some of the rebate fulfillment centers from about 10 years ago conveniently "lost" all the documents and never paid out the rebates. You had to send the original receipt & UPC codes off the boxes, so there wasn't any chance to submit another set of proof of purchase, even if you had the foresight to make copies.
@choice - yes I have seen many things on Amazon that are higher-priced than elsewhere. I might try a free year of Amazon prime just to stream the shows & music.
Yes there is a law in the UK saying you must have something on sale at the higher price for 30 days, but as GP correctly points out it is easy to get round it by having on sale in a small remote branch before the reduction. I do think, however that customer service has got better in many UK stores - partly the result of the recession with stores trying to attract more business, but also competing with on-line retailing. But it certainly is not everywhere! I've also have an example recently being able to buy something at a lower price when mis-priced, which shops are supposed to do, but also of a shop refusing to sell at the lower marked price when I got to the till, which is actually illegal. I think we do have quite clear rules on retailing, most from the EU, but they are not always applied as they ought to be.
Down again - I always fear the worst, especially as I haven't spent most of this month's credits yet. That was going to be my job now... hopefully they will be there tomorrow to do it then!
The music publication Wondering Sound has scaled back some parts of our operation, it says in a statement. It plans to pursue the partnerships and funding needed to continue the growth and success that Wondering Sound has achieved since its launch earlier this year"...
BRING ME THE HEAD OF ANDREW BEAUJON!!!!! HOW DARE HE NOT INCLUDE ME IN THE LIST OF SPLASHY NAMES!!!
I don't know anything about this.
Personally, it would suck for me to lose my gig. I'd have to try to find a way to make it work financially via my own site. It might become the very first Bird is the Worm crowdfunding project.
I do know that WS really wants to emphasize its separateness from eMusic, so they could be looking for different hook-ups that continue that trend. Perhaps eMusic's parent organization has been slipping WS a monthly allowance with the understanding that eventually WS would have to get a job after school to help pay the bills. Considering the way in which the eMu editorial staff completely broke off from the 17 Dots thing, I don't think this is an unfeasible assumption. And maybe by giving the indication that they're slimming down, perhaps WS is hoping to get something going along the lines with how I Care If You Listen did with HuffPost... something along the lines of, "hey, we don't cost much to run our operations, see, so investing some partnership funds in our ops won't be much of a risk" kind of thing.
Again, I'm just totally guessing here. I'm not in the WS loop. Hell, I can't even see the loop from where I'm standing. I know my Jazz Picks column gets some pretty serious traffic numbers and social media hits, and I also know for what I end up writing, WS has me on the cheap (though I'm seriously grateful for what I do earn), so I feel comfortable stating that I'm not a drag on the bottom line. But, really, who knows with these things. There are still many days when I sit back, stunned that I'm actually making some money writing about modern jazz. I really think it's cool how JE Keyes stepped up and hired me.
So, the short answer is, "no, I have no insight."
The existential answer is I'm really surprised that the word "separateness" didn't earn a red squiggly line.
Huh. I haven't heard anything yet and I'm not sure how much I should be reading into all the comments I'm seeing on Twitter, but maybe it's much worse than the vague "scaled back some parts" originally sounded.
There's only one column I read regularly on Wondering Sounds (no guesses needed!). It does lead me to download from emusic, and without Jonah's input I'd have left emusic ages ago. I'd be sorry to see it (the column) go.
Indeed. Holding out some hope that cutting staff doesn't mean all freelance contribs are gone. If so, hard to see the point of keeping the site up past the end of the month.
As I said on twitter, it was the only part of wondering sound that I read on a regular basis. I found several great albums through it this year. I am sorry it's gone, and thank you for all your work on it.
I didn't remember that amclark was the originator of the "Hire Jonah" groundswell, well done ac2. I do seem to recall that it was in response to a dumb-headed eMusic review of an important Miles Davis re-release that said something like, "I guess this supposed to be a big deal, if you're into that sort of thing"
Wonder if there's any hope someone will pick up WS? Wonder if it drove enough traffic to sell any ads? It's a shame to lose it, and you do wonder about the eMu strategy: beefing up the Ed content, spinning it off, and letting it die.
Congrats Jonah on a good run,,,I bet some new opptys bubble up eventually!
Thanks everyone. We'll see how things go. I'm really leaning towards doing some sort of crowdfunding campaign and see if I can't develop a very low price point to where people grab it spontaneously in a what-the-hell-it-only-costs-[amount] impulse purchase. But we'll see.
Really sorry Jonah - seriously without your column I would not have downloaded at least half of the music that I have over the last three years from emusic. Now I am wondering if I will continue being a member...
Comments
Craig
why does this annoy you? I'd think the idiot assumption is correct!
I think the UK law if I remember rightly (maybe greg knows) is that something has to have been on sale at the regular price for 30 days before you can reduce it and claim it is on sale. The way around that is to put it on sale at one obscure branch of your store for 30 days before putting it on sale everywhere...
I think there are "bait and switch" laws in the states, which require that you actually have the item at the advertised price. But that's gotten around by having limited quantities in stock.
I advised him to wait for KMart to put them on sale if he wasn't in a hurry. Pretty much everything in a big-box store goes on sale every 6 weeks or so.
GP - do they have coupons in Europe? I freaking hate coupons. Just put the damn thing on SALE. Heh. And by that, I mean actually reduce the regular price.
It's all marketing tactics to create interest and a feeling of "need to get it now". Even though I know it, I still succumb at times.
Need to take a shower & get to Bed Bath & Beyond to use a coupon!
And I will say this in favor of America sales - we once went to a big store here looking for tennis gear for my son that was on sale, and they had run out of the sale item, so they offered to let me choose a different one at the same sale price. Would NEVER happen in England, where customer service is more often of the deceased parrot variety.
(Another time in the same huge store I saw a winter coat I wanted, with 70% off. I also noticed that it had the wrong price tag on it - all the similar ones were $80 and this one said something like $25 and was clearly for the wrong item. But this was the style I wanted so I took it to the checkout, pointed out that the price was wrong but said if she could check the real price I'd like to buy it. She called her supervisor, confirmed the price was wrong, and then proceeded to sell it to me for 70% less than the lower price, the one on the wrong tag. Despite being British I quit asking questions at that point and got it for around $10, and it was a good coat. If England were like that, Monty Python would have been short of material).
I hate rebates even more than coupons. They are even more cynically manipulative.
Amazon is really sketchy sometimes with gold box deals when they talk about savings over retail price instead of their previous price which can be quite different.
@choice - yes I have seen many things on Amazon that are higher-priced than elsewhere. I might try a free year of Amazon prime just to stream the shows & music.
The music publication Wondering Sound has scaled back some parts of our operation, it says in a statement. It plans to pursue the partnerships and funding needed to continue the growth and success that Wondering Sound has achieved since its launch earlier this year"...
I don't know anything about this.
Personally, it would suck for me to lose my gig. I'd have to try to find a way to make it work financially via my own site. It might become the very first Bird is the Worm crowdfunding project.
I do know that WS really wants to emphasize its separateness from eMusic, so they could be looking for different hook-ups that continue that trend. Perhaps eMusic's parent organization has been slipping WS a monthly allowance with the understanding that eventually WS would have to get a job after school to help pay the bills. Considering the way in which the eMu editorial staff completely broke off from the 17 Dots thing, I don't think this is an unfeasible assumption. And maybe by giving the indication that they're slimming down, perhaps WS is hoping to get something going along the lines with how I Care If You Listen did with HuffPost... something along the lines of, "hey, we don't cost much to run our operations, see, so investing some partnership funds in our ops won't be much of a risk" kind of thing.
Again, I'm just totally guessing here. I'm not in the WS loop. Hell, I can't even see the loop from where I'm standing. I know my Jazz Picks column gets some pretty serious traffic numbers and social media hits, and I also know for what I end up writing, WS has me on the cheap (though I'm seriously grateful for what I do earn), so I feel comfortable stating that I'm not a drag on the bottom line. But, really, who knows with these things. There are still many days when I sit back, stunned that I'm actually making some money writing about modern jazz. I really think it's cool how JE Keyes stepped up and hired me.
So, the short answer is, "no, I have no insight."
The existential answer is I'm really surprised that the word "separateness" didn't earn a red squiggly line.
http://www.birdistheworm.com/drifting-presently-the-weekly-recommendation-column/
Craig
Wonder if there's any hope someone will pick up WS? Wonder if it drove enough traffic to sell any ads? It's a shame to lose it, and you do wonder about the eMu strategy: beefing up the Ed content, spinning it off, and letting it die.
Congrats Jonah on a good run,,,I bet some new opptys bubble up eventually!
Today's recommendations are up...
http://www.birdistheworm.com/this-is-jazz-today-jason-parker-quartet-valia-calda-hang-em-high-and-more/
Cheers.