Your Help Requested
One of the concerns about a sales tax holiday like the one Alabama has coming up next weekend is that retailers might not offer their best prices during the weekend. Shoppers will presumably be out in full force, and so retailers may not have much incentive to have their lowest prices. Some of the savings from the tax holiday may be eaten up by higher prices. In fact, one study in Florida found (pdf file) “that up to 20 percent of the potential benefits from that state’s sales tax holiday were reclaimed by retailers in the form of higher prices.”
Let’s check it out and you can help. Let’s get volunteers (here is where you come in) to go to a store and price a few things the weekend before the sales tax holiday, the weekend of the sales tax holiday, and the weekend after. Of course, if you volunteer, you will need to check the same item(s) at the same store(s) all three weekends.
Interested? Email me at the address at the top of the page. (No one will get your email address from me, and I will not keep your email address to use for anything else.) I’d like to get a rough head count of how many are willing to do this to see if we will have enough to make it feel worthwhile.
I think it will be interesting to see if prices are as good during the weekend of the sales tax holiday as they are the weekends before and after.
I’ll do it. Who’s with me?
All you will do is go to one or more stores this weekend, jot down the prices of a few items covered by the sales tax holiday, and go back the next two weekends to jot down the prices again to see if they have changed. Send me what you have found, and I’ll compile it.
Might be fun. Might learn a whole lot of nothing. Maybe both.
Are you in?
There is no incentive for the retailers to raise prices since the sales tax holiday doesn’t take any money out of their pockets. My experience in GA and NC is that you can find some terrific sales–much like the day after Thanksgiving. Loss leaders to get you into the store with the hope that you will buy other things as well.
Comment by Anonymous — July 27, 2006 @ 8:14 am
You may be right. I thought it would be fun to use a little bit of effort from a good number of people to get a lot of information to see how it played out.
I wondered if retailers would have more incentive to lower prices on other shopping weekends because that is when they needed to lure shoppers. For example, two weeks ago I saw a flier from one of the mega-office supply places, and they had a box of Crayola Crayons on sale for 15 cents instead of the regular $1.69. I wondered if they would have deals that good during the sales tax holiday weekend. Plus, there is the study from Florida concluding that some of the benefits from their sales tax holiday were eaten up by higher prices.
Good thought about the comparison to the day after Thanksgiving though. Sure would be interesting to have some real-life information to see how it plays out.
Want to put a little bit of effort into helping us get some info?
Comment by Danny — July 27, 2006 @ 9:43 am