Is 40% off really such a good deal?

Originally published at A few words from Rob Mansfield. You can comment here or there.

So we beetled off to our local Wine Rack on Sunday because, like many thousands of other booze-buyers, we had a 40% off voucher that seems to be doing the rounds.

It's quite an exciting prospect to be told you get 4 bottles free for every 10 you buy, isn't it? I mean it sounds too good to be true...

Well, the basic truth is that it really is true. Using the voucher we did indeed get 40% off all the bottles we bought. But there was a slight catch and one I only really worked out afterwards.

You see, the group that owns Wine Rack and Thresher do this cunning thing anyway where they price their wine at a slightly higher price than normal but then offer a 3 for 3 deal. This means that a bottle of wine will cost £8.99 for example if you buy it singly, but will come in at £5.99 if you buy 3.

So effectively, the shop is offering 33% off before it starts, meaning the 40% voucher meant we only got an extra 7% off the starting price.

Now clearly, it's still an incentive and if you were going to buy booze from there anyway you save money, but it's another classic marketing offer that fools people (like me) into spending!