Thursday, November 21, 2024

You've planned all year for this shopping day. Your holiday budget is set. You are determined to stick to it and you have high hopes of not overspending.

First stop, the local mall. At the mall, your first purchase is a pair of tennis shoes. $29.95. Fine, your budget was $33. That will just cover the taxes. Then you get the upsell. Your shoes won't be complete unless you purchase their ultra super spicy clean scented leather cleaner and polisher. It's only $5.99.

Next stop, an Icee because you are worn out. You tell the clerk that you want a small size for $1.39. She says, for $.79 cents more you can get the Santa cup upgrade. There's not any more Icee, just the Santa head on the cup.

Now you head down the hall packed with other eager shoppers to the beauty and bath boutique. You smell all the tempting lotions and settle on two bottles of green apple. One costs $6.00 but they offer you two for $10.00. What a deal.

Finally, about six hours later, you drag yourself and your eighteen bags out of the store to your car and drive home. Upon arriving at home, you pull out your calculator and all your receipts for the day. Total = $520.75. Oh my, what could have gone wrong. My budget was $350.00 and I had everything planned out so well.

Your problem is called upsells! They are big this year and they are persuasive.

I spent two hours at the new mall in town last week. In every store I went to, they tried to sell me something additional related to my purchase. They pushed, they pulled, they persuaded and looked at me crazy when I said no. These uncomfortable encounters were ruining the fun of my holiday shopping experience.

I finally decided the only way to handle this was to take the offensive approach. I simply said, "I'm not interested in your upsell. It's a great strategy but it won't work on me." All of a sudden, the sales associates were on the defensive, back peddling with excuses of just trying to help, etc.

In Summary:

You really don't need that plastic Santa Claus cap on your paper cup, or that new accessory or the shoe cleaner or the extra bottle of lotion. If you are like me, you have 15 of each of the above mentioned items sitting in a drawer at home.

Sales associates are becoming experts at making you feel like you need these things at the critical moment of payment.

Stand firm and just say no. If you have to: Think Football. Think Offense.

It's your life and your money that pays for that purchase.

Don't let yourself be talked into a last minute upsell.

I'm proud to say that during my adventure at the mall last weekend, I won the upsell battle. I wish you the best in your battle as well. Once you get the hang of it, it can almost be "fun".

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