The End?

http://www.sherlockholmesmystery.com/

I have learned many things during my time researching my topic. My original question started out as just ’What affects what people buy during different seasons?’ and quickly took a drastic turn to talk about sales and how to buy something worth it. I have learned that many people online write post or articles that tell you when the best months are to buy things, but don’t explain why. I’ve learned that you can get cheap airline tickets simply by looking at them in incognito mode and I've explained my personal process in buying items i’m not 100% sure on. I’ve even learned that my overall question, is more common sense than a question and that you just need basic knowledge to actually tell when to buy products, but it definitely helps to know some economics because then you can understand it and actually know why it happens. I think, most importantly, I’ve learned that people are psycho when it comes to Black Friday, i’m kidding, it’s not the most important, but it is the most surprising. Most importantly, I’ve learned that there are many people who write about how to “cheat” the markets and buy things cheap, but companies aren’t dumb, they don’t live under rocks with no access to internet, they can see all of these posts and easily change prices to invalidate their arguments/articles. This ended up raising more questions for me than it answered like; maybe these authors are really just writing these for the companies and they are making the reader want to buy goods of season, and those prices are really higher than in season. Maybe it’s all some conspiracy, like the Illuminati.  I don’t know, it just seems like companies would do something about it because it technically means they are losing some profits if people buy things when they’re cheaper, or it just means they change the time they raise prices so it’s flipped, I guess i’ll never truly know because I don’t see myself going into any career related to this, but, I can always wonder.

In the end, I learned many interesting things related, and not even remotely related to my topic, all of which were worthwhile. I look forward to applying my somewhat new found knowledge to my own purchases. And I am absolutely never going Black Friday shopping, ever.  

Black Death, I mean Friday

http://sites.psu.edu/

Black Friday. Arguable the biggest sale of the year, but what is it really saving you? Are you saving the $100s of dollars they save in the commercials? or is it just a ploy to get you to recklessly spend $100s, maybe $1000s of dollars? Maybe it really does save you money, but would you put those sales over your life? In 2008 at a New York Wal-Mart, a man was trampled to death as people poured into the store, no one checked on the man to see if he was ok, and on the same day in California, two people were shot at Toys ‘r Us. I mean really? Toys ‘r Us? shot over a freaking toy. Even as recent as 2013, officers had to shoot a suspect who was dragging a cop behind his truck over in Romeoville, IL. Ok, back to the subject of sales, Does Black Friday really save you money? If you think yes, then you may need to greatly reconsider. Ok fine, maybe there will be the odd deal out there where you really do get an awesome deal, but generally, you get crap for the dirt cheap prices. According to Caleb Denison on DigitalTrends.com, Black Friday isn’t worth your time. He says that usually, if you're getting electronics, you get broken electronics, or something that will break really quickly. He gave an example where he bought two Blu-ray players, from a notable brand, as gifts and within four months, he got calls from both of the recipients that they were broken or it has started having a lot of issues. He compares Black Friday shopping to gambling in vegas, “It’s like gambling in Vegas. The cards are stacked against you.”. Amanda C. Haury of Investopedia.com says that you can be easily tempted to purchase many items, so even if its a good deal, you end up paying a lot because you get a lot. Even though everything is on sale, you end up buying many items you don’t exactly need, so you waste tons of money. She mentions how many people go into a ‘shopping frenzy’ due to many people rushing and competing to get the last items on the shelf. “Black Friday has the tendency to get consumers very excited, and consumers go into a sort of shopping frenzy on the day. Overexcitement mixed with adrenaline and a credit card is not a good combination for keeping a budget intact.”, Haury talks about how over-excited people with credit cards on Black Friday is never a good thing because you may binge buy items and usually, you can’t return many of the items you get. My next post will just sum up what I’ve learned overall.

Revelation

http://previews.123rf.com/

According to BusinessDictionary.com, the definition of Price Effect is: The impact that a change in value has on the consumer demand for a product or service in the market. The price effect can also refer to the impact that an event has on something's price. The price effect consists of the substitution effect and the income effect. This means that the price of items directly correlates with the consumers demand, as we learned in class, but it also shows that goods are better to buy at times that the consumers aren’t demanding it. I’ve found out over personal experience and research that my overall research question, isn’t really a question at all, it’s more just common sense when you take the time to just think about it. I mean, everyone wants, let’s say, sweatpants for winter, so sweatpants retailers will bump up the price because they know people will buy them. Then, once the craze sort of blows over, they lower them back down because no one's gonna buy them at that price anymore, and that would be the perfect time to buy them. Advertising plays a big role in this process as well. Companies would advertise sweatpants during the prime sweatpants season and make everyone think that they need to get it. Even when they have sales, sometimes they increase the price then add the sale to keep it at what it was before while tricking the buyer into thinking there is a sale. This leads into my next topic, Do sales really save you money, and are you really buying a worthwhile product. I plan to look into sales, Black Friday For example since it is coming up this week.

Source: http://i.kinja-img.com

As most people know, many items cannot be bought during certain seasons, Many people like to get specialty drinks, holiday clothes, and even day to day items. Why do many retailers only sell them at specific times, or lower the price only during a few months? I have dug a little more into the topic to figure out what the best items are to purchase during seasons and why. The first article I found on the topic was, The Best Time to Buy Anything During The Year, published on LifeHacker.com. They list many informational sources that go further into depth on specific products and list the best months to buy products. I found out that if I wanted to buy an extra computer monitor, I should get it during January-March or if I were to buy a new set of golf clubs, then I should wait until March. I did some further research on Proquest, and found an article by Robert J. Bruss of the Chicago Tribune, He pretty much explains the same thing as LifeHacker, but his article was more of a Q&A where he answered questions and listed out the explanation. Many others just give a list of items and their seasons to buy them during, but they don't go into the details. Megan Elliot on CheetSheet.com, posted an article and just lists a few items, but she sort of goes into an explanation on what the stores do.

The Price is Right

Source: http://topnotchmakeovers.com/

So I did some more research since the 2nd blog post and I found out many interesting things on buys products. While browsing Imgur.com, I came across a post that included many “Life Hacks”, and one of them applied to buying airline tickets. When searching for tickets, you should browse in Incognito mode because the airlines use your history to check on what you are looking for and spike up the prices, while in Incognito mode, they can’t. Many times, people see items that they want, but they don’t know if they should buy it now or later. There are many factors that go into when or when not to buy the product you want. I’m going to list out what I usually do when I try to purchase a product. I generally like to stay away from online purchases because there are so many things that can go wrong, but I use online sites to compare prices. First, I compare prices on online sites and try to find the cheapest place. I also see if stores match price to online stores to try and find even cheaper prices. Second, I go to both stores to see if they actually have the price that's on the website and make sure i'm getting one that isn't used or in bad shape. Those are mainly the things you can do when looking for a product, but the biggest part is really up to you to decide whether you want it or not.

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk

As most people know, many items cannot be bought during certain seasons, Many people like to get specialty drinks, holiday clothes, and even day to day items. Why do many retailers only sell them at specific times, or lower the price only during a few months? I have dug a little more into the topic to figure out what the best items are to purchase during seasons and why. The first article I found on the topic was, The Best Time to Buy Anything During The Year, published on LifeHacker.com. They list many informational sources that go further into depth on specific products and list the best months to buy products. I found out that if I wanted to buy an extra computer monitor, I should get it during January-March or if I were to buy a new set of golf clubs, then I should wait until March. I did some further research on Proquest, and found an article by Robert J. Bruss of the Chicago Tribune, He pretty much explains the same thing as LifeHacker, but his article was more of a Q&A where he answered questions and listed out the explanation. Many others just give a list of items and their seasons to buy them during, but they don't go into the details. Megan Elliot on CheetSheet.com, posted an article and just lists a few items, but she sort of goes into an explanation on what the stores do.


FUTURE QUESTION: How can people figure out when to buy things? And when is their purchase a smart buy?

Four Seasons and Buying

Source: http://www.creeksidecs.com

• Briefly explain why you are interested in studying your topic:  
• I think that is is interesting to know when you should go to the store to buy items you need, whether it be clothes, furniture, games, or even recreational items like golf clubs.

• The overall question I plan on answering by the end of the project:
• What affects what people buy during different seasons?

• Sub questions I will need to answer in order to answer the overall question:
• What items are better for different seasons?
• Why are items better to get during different seasons?
• How come the demand shifts for certain products?
• How can you get the most for your dollar?

• My plan of research (what specific Library Databases, specific websites, names of authors, people, etc. will I pursue to find the answers to the questions above):
• Global Issues in Context
• Proquest
• Jstor
• Gale Virtual Reference Library
• Hoovers

TEST BLOG POST

TEST BLOG POST