Clothes shopping. Some people love it and for others it is simply a necessity.
Even if you are one of the people who love it, you should be aware that those friendly staff in the store don’t always have your best interests at heart. There are sales tricks that can cost you serious money and many more decisions you can make around your clothing choices that could cost you much more than you want.
Fake sales
Along with jewellery stores and rug warehouses, clothing retailers are big users of the discount strategy. Everything seems to be 50 per cent off with the sale ending soon. But can you be sure that you are actually getting any discount at all? Well, you can. You just have to do a little research online to see if you can find the actual list price of the item, or see what other retailers are charging for that item, or for something similar. Don’t make an impulse decision because you think you are getting a bargain.
Actual sales
As well as avoiding the fake sales, it is also important to know when the real ones are on and take advantage of them.
You undoubtedly know about the end of financial year stocktake sales and the Boxing Day sales, but your favourite clothing retailer may have other regular sales promotions that you should know about and possibly even note in your calendar to make sure that you never actually pay full price.
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Falling for designer labels
Celebrities and sports stars are paid to wear designer clothes, but unless you are earning just as much money as they are, you are best to avoid them.
The costs of designer labels are usually ludicrous. Check out the video below for five reasons why you should not buy designer brands when you are clothes shopping.
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Online deals
This one is a bit of a double-edged sword, and this mistake really depends on your personality.
If you are the type of person who sees emails from your favourite store and is always tempted by the offers and ends up buying way more stuff than you use or need, then maybe consider unsubscribing from these emails.
If you get swept up in sales hype, unsubscribe from retailer mailing lists. The fewer daily deals you see, the more likely you are to stick to your budget.
Conversely, if you avoid signing up for these emails or don’t follow retailers online because you don’t like to see your messages clogged with offers, you could actually be missing out on some great deals.
If you don’t want to see your inbox clogged with annoying emails from retailers, consider setting up another email address through a free service and use it exclusively to collect offers and coupons when you are ready to go shopping.
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Caring for your clothes
Often the biggest way to waste money on new clothes is the frequency at which you have to buy them because you don’t care for your clothes well enough.
Make sure you read the washing instructions properly, even before you purchase an item, and perhaps try to avoid those clothes that are likely to be high maintenance, where you know you won’t follow the care instructions after the first couple of wears.
If the tag says dry clean only and you never take your clothes to the dry cleaner, don’t waste money buying the item, when you know that you are just going to wreck it in your home dryer and then have to buy something new to replace it.
What tips do you have for others about clothes shopping?
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