Sales Are Shams but Deals Are Real: Here’s How to Know the Difference

Online sales are everywhere. They can take the form of targeted emails promising giant discounts, or holiday or anniversary sale “extravaganzas” touted with exciting but mostly meaningless language like “Our biggest event of the year!” It’s often quite difficult to know whether an offering is an overhyped “sale” that doesn’t provide a meaningful discount or an actual deal. Typical “sale” promotions are awash in marketing language and inflated “full” prices, and they’re often saddled with a healthy list of exclusions or conditions. But an actual deal is a real and meaningful discount off the typical price of an item.

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