I’ve noticed that since the beginning of this year, especially going into Q3 and Q4 that my Amex, Chase credit card all start to offer really aggressive discount on all spending categories. This is not a Black Friday or special holiday theme (though they are even more aggressive like the recent 50% off Amex perk on Amazon), but I see 20% cash regularly back on FarFetch, Nordstrom, 10-20% on Dell, GoPro, Dyson and 25% on major hotel and dining chains fairly regularly.
My Citi thank you portal as of right now is offering 15% off on Apple Giftcard. It got to a point that you almost can’t find anything that’s not at least 10% off at any given time when you want to buy something, regardless if it is clothing, food, electronics and travel. But it also leaves a new habit but I won’t buy anything until I see a 10-20% coupon or sale somewhere. So on one hand it is stimulating consumption, on the other it is creating the expectation of cheaper price – curbing consumption.
But the original motivation of retailers and credit card companies seem to be simple – is that this is a sign that people aren’t buying enough and companies need to throw an indirect way to stimulate consumption across the board without massively cutting their MSRP? Then why not just cut MSRP directly?
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