I deciphered a notice different to everybody else...

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...and nobody understands!

Ok so I'm in a shop with my friend and hes rummaging through the racks for a coat to wear to a party. I'm not going to this party, so I don't care what he's going to wear and I'm pretty much ignoring everything he says.

I do what I always do instead, and just look around. See whats noticeable. Then I see this big sign on the wall..

"Up to 60% off selected items".

So I turn to my friend, I don't think hes really listening but I tell him anyway: "That sign there. Basically its saying no items have more than a 60% reduction. So technically, everything could be more expensive than usual and the sign would still be correct".

He looks at me funny and then walks off. It plays on my mind all day, I even tell my mum about it when she calls to see if I will be at home that night. She doesn't get it, tells me I'm looking to deep into things as usual. But I was not looking deep at all, it really was my first understanding when I read that notice.

Does anybody here actually get what I'm trying to say?!

Sorry if you think I'm crazy. I like to write things.

I get what you're saying, but where I am, that scenario where items are raised in price, or no item is 60% off regular price, would be called false advertising, and people could sue for it.

But they said up to 60% off. So, if 1 item had 60% off, and the rest of them had +60% the sign would still be correct. So the consumer sees the sign and thinks "Oh, a sale" and then buys something that may have just been raised in price, thinking it must be a good deal.

I don't know.

I get that sometimes. I often refuse to use a greeting until someone explains to me what they mean when they say it. For example, I had to ask around 10 people what they thought about, 'Happy New Years' until I said it, because to me it seemed more like a command. Some people may not want one. And then once I was trying to find out whether people remembered acronyms better than full sentences or if it was unique to me, and the amount of crap I got from asking someone to read a sheet of acronyms was insane...
I don't know if this is what you mean, but yeah.
EMZ=]

well you are right i suppose

You're not wrong, actually. A lot of stores change prices to offset whatever promo they're currently running. There's no "false advertising" involved because all regular price means is whatever the product typically sells for. In sales terms, that means the MSRP set by the manufacturer, which is always higher than the actual retail price.

I understand perfectly. The sign means that while some of the selected items have a 60% reduction in price... they don't say anything else. So while unlikely, the person who designed the sign could have increased the usual price of the selected items by 300% and then said, " Hey! You can get 60% off these items". While potentially omitted the fact that he raised the price first.

Thought most people just know that, for the most part, that sign means that there is a 60% discount on an items price. People like to think in a " Just the way it is context, " it's easier. I have a lot of problems with things like that on exams and the like. One thing I would try is to try keeping certain things like that to yourself... it seems like it would be similar to a NT person telling you about how jealous some girl across the store looks.

Edit: I don't mean to be rude when suggesting to keep it to yourself... I just know that I have a lot of problems with being over exact or analytical of things that most people get right after I say them. And it's even worse when they don't get it, because then I get a huge urge to explain it to them so I don't look like an idiot or even more of a weirdo.

Actually, regular price is the price THAT STORE usually has SOLD it for! At least according to the FTC.

And YEAH, UP TO x% is a SCAM. A coworker asked me if I went to the local circuit city, to see the sale where they CLAIMED that they had stuff on sale up to 50%. I told her the pickings were slim, the savings weren't worth the risk, and they didn't seem to have anything for 50% off. I posited that it was, perhaps, for the FIXTURES! NOW, they claim up to 60% off!

The way you stated it is slightly confusing. Do you mean:

A) By 60% off the price, they mean that the deviation from the normal price could be up to + or - 60% and thus could be above or below the normal price?

B) That if at least one item had it's price cut by 60% then any other item could be whatever price they want to put it as?

C) That the stores increase the base prices of their sale items so that the amount of money spent during the sale is not 40% of the total price of the object when not on sale?

I can read it as any of the above, but normally read it as B with the understanding that C is most likely occuring.

Edit: If they raise the base price of the object before the sale occurs... then they can put it on "sale" for the price that they originally had it at.

That sign is also really vague. It could mean many, many things. They don't tell you what the 60% is. It could be the weight of the item that they selected and you purchased for all they care. The best way to go about it is that the most probable answer is probably it with these things.

Where I live, being correct is not good enough. Advertising must also not be misleading or deceptive (this standard is explicitly required by legislation).

So for instance advertising must be clear if there is limited stock discounted. A store that discounts its last 10 stereos (in a line) by 50% and advertises this outside the store, must include the fact that there are only 10 such items available in the same advert.

For in-store advertising, if discounts are offered, the advertising must be clear what stock is discounted, by how much and the price before and after discount (this can be done by a sign as described by the OP, but the price tags of the actual items would have to individually identify whether they were discounted).

It is considered deceptive practice to raise prices to then introduce a false discount, and if caught, a retailer would face fines.

However, it's important to be aware of consumer protection laws because these things are not uniform from one place to another. If you know what is and is not allowed (in regards to advertising) then you'll know what to look out for when shopping.

I get it, and I agree.

They say "up to 60 percent off" rather than something like "at least 10 percent off" because the former grabs normal people's attention more than the latter. It also forces the customer to go in and look around the store for the bigger discounts and possibly buy non-discounted items of interest they see in the process. Usually the chances are slim that the 60 percent off item is actually something I want or need. Personally I'd rather buy something I really want for 10 percent off than buy some junk I wasn't initially even interested in for 60 percent off.

You're not over-analyzing. Parsing store signs is a lifeskill. I've known some businesspeople who have told me they've used tactics like this--i.e. a furniture salesperson will place on an item a tag saying, "Made with such-and-such," such-and-such being some highly technical name for a certain material. Well, it turns out there's nothing special about the material--it's pretty commonplace--but the language of the sign implies it's a big deal. I actually saw someone do this *while* crossing out a fake price just over the real one to give the impression that it had been significantly reduced.