Sales without "sales" items

Consumers want to save money. So, the retailers organize sales. However, there are some problems with sales. If the sales are real, the retailers profit become lesser. If the sales are faked, e.g. by putting up an increased retail price before the discount, then consumers lose trust in the company, and even the whole concept of sales. Another problems is that in general, like the sayings that pay peanuts get monkeys, usually items on offer are not the normal items. It might not be intentional. For example, at clearance sales, as the name suggest, these items were the ones that weren't chosen by earlier customers, which could imply that these were likely not the best ones among the batch of products.

Recently, technology helps to make possible and easy the way to offer cheaper products to selective or a controlled number of customers. The idea of giving/selling discount coupons online. Savings.com is such an example. In this way, as the discount is not for all walk-in customers, you don't expect the products and their displayed retail prices to be difference than during normal days. By controlling the number of coupons given out, the retailers can have good control of their discount budget.

Of course, lets hope no retailers are so free and bad to categorized their products between buyers with and without discount coupons.