Cracking Store Codes

(NEWSCHANNEL 3) – Clothing, electronics, shoes; every product has its price. But what does that price mean?

Newschannel 3 spoke with a coupon guru who says he’s cracked the price tag codes.

Kyle James is the Deal Guru, his blog, RatherBeShopping.com aims to save shoppers money. He says it was a news story that caught his attention a few years ago and sent him on a journey to crack the price tag code.

Now, he’s sharing what he’s learned.

Walking through a store can be overwhelming, you’re hit with products, price tags and signs reading sale or clearance.

Perhaps you’ve seen an odd number on a price tag like $4.93 or $12.56 and wondered how did they ever come up with that number.

Kyle James says it’s all about the cents.

“If you knew what the cents of the price was, you could tell if it was a clearance product, full price,” said James.

So, James is making ‘cents’ of it for shoppers. He says he got started by talking with employees at various stores and found out that several of them have similar internal pricing systems. He then put what he’d learned to the test.

James took Newschannel 3 through two big stores.

Let’s start with Target;

“If it ends .99 cents, it’s full price,” said James. “If you see something that ends in .98, .88, .04, or .24 it’s a marked down clearance price.”

And that’s not the only number you’ll see on a clearance sticker. If you check out the upper right hand corner, you’ll find a small number: 15, 30, 50, 70, or 91.

James tells us that’s the percent off the original price, but why do those numbers matter?

James says if you pay close attention you may be able to go back to the store later for bigger savings.

“The Target employee told me they do their mark downs every ten to fourteen days, so if you’re shopping and let’s say they have ten pairs of a particular shoe that you like and they’re all marked down at clearance, but maybe they’re only at 15 or 30,” said James. “Well, if they have a lot of inventory there’s a really good chance that that’s going to get marked down to 50 in another week or so.”

James says the strategy works well for electronics, clothing, shoes and even home décor at Target.

Another popular store is Home Depot.

“If the product ends in a six, could be .96 could be .06, that means and it’s typically gonna be on a yellow price tag, and what that means is that it’s a clearance product,” said James, “and that six means, represents six weeks until the next mark down. After six weeks if they haven’t sold out, it’s gonna get marked down.”

If the price ends in a three, whether that’s .03, .93, or .33, James says it will be three weeks until Home Depot liquidates it out of the store.

He says if you need a power tool and you’re not looking for a specific brand, check out the tags and look for a six or a three. James says that price will be 20 to 30 percent less than anywhere else, and if you pair it with a coupon, that’s even better.

So what do the stores have to say about these discoveries?

Newschannel 3 reached out to Sears, Office Depot, Best Buy, Home Depot, and Target. Our interview requests were declined for various reasons. Some stores said they won’t comment for competitive reasons, others saying they don’t comment on pricing strategies.

“Some of these policies might change from time to time,” said James, “I think stores are very tight-lipped about it. You know, I haven’t had any negative backlash per se because in many cases it’s clearance stuff, it’s products that the stores want to get rid of anyway.”

And right now you might be thinking, I’ll never remember all that, but James has you covered. He’s created a cheat sheet that you can find on his blog, RatherBeShopping.com, which you can access by clicking here.