Although retailers are facing their worst holiday season in five years they aren’t necessarily resorting to lower prices across the board to increase sales.  An article in Smart Money shows how stores are being smart about giving discounts that will not only increase sales but also benefit them in the long run.  

Smart Sales Strategies
Retailers are offering sales announcements, special deals, and exclusive coupons to people that sign up for their email newsletter, rewards program, or store credit cards. When a customer signs up for any of these, the retailer increases their chances the person will spend more money, more frequently since the retailer now has the opportunity to market directly to their postal or email inbox.  Although the store may not make as much on the initial discounted purchase they hope to continue to sell to those people over time.

Online Shopping
One thing many of the retailer newsletters will do is direct customers to deals online where they can save money with coupon codes or reduced/free shipping.  Even if the customer never sets foot in the store again, they can still make the retailer money by shopping online.  Instead of making a person come into the store and wait in line to make a sale they can offer them the ease and convenience of clicking a Buy button on their home computer.

Gift Card Promotions
Another tactic that stores are using to prop up sales without cutting as deep into their bottom line is the use of gift card promotions. The Smart Money article gives the example of DSW Shoe Warehouse that offers a $10 bonus gift card for use Jan. 14 through Feb. 3, when a person purchases a $50 gift card.

Since a percentage of gift cards go unused or under-used, retailers can increase sales without actually selling merchandise in some cases.  In another example, Best Buy is giving $10 cards to those who buy the “Spider-Man 3″ DVD and videogame. People pay full price for the item but still feel as though they saved $10 on their purchase.  The retailers come out ahead when that customer never uses the card or maybe even uses it towards buying a $20 – $30 item they wouldn’t have purchased without the gift card.

Smart Shopping
As a consumer, you can still take advantage of the sales, discounts, and promotions offered over the holidays, just make sure you use them to save money, and don’t fall into the trap of spending more because of them.

Holiday shopping is ZERO fun.  Although I wasn’t around for Black Friday, I did spend half an hour waiting in line this evening to make my first gift purchase of the season.  The longer I stood the more irritated I became with the situation and any holiday cheer I was feeling quickly evaporated.  I decided while waiting in line that this year I’m going to do the remainder of my Christmas shopping online.  If I start now I should have it all delivered on time, we’ll see how it goes.

I wasn’t the only one with shopping on the brain this week. The Digerati Life gives us some Black Friday Inspired Shopping Strategies, Generation X Finance offers a List of Some 2007 Cyber Monday Sales, Free Money Finance listed 10 Things Better than Shopping Today, Mighty Bargain Hunter asks Can you do without these holiday expenses?, and My Money Blog suggests some Investment Gift Idea For Children.

Here were some other posts I enjoyed this week:

-The Sandwiched Generation @ Money, Matter, & More

-Book I Read: An American Hedge Fund @ Suns Financial Diary

-Changing Credit Card Rewards Strategy @ Five Cent Nickel

-History of the Indices: Dow, Nasdaq, S&P & More @ Blueprint for Financial Prosperity

-Exactly HOW I Pay Off Debt, Mortgages And Credit Cards Early @ No Credit Needed

As you go through the checkout line this holiday season try the following experiment. Take all your full shopping bags directly to the Salvation Army. Keep one and give the remainder away. Repeat this every shopping trip. How long would it be before you dramatically decreased the amount you bought or just stopped shopping all together?

Disposable Gifts

Seem a little drastic? Did you realize that many of the things you buy for gifts will eventually end up being thrown away or donated? Of course there are some items that will be used and cherished for years but then there’s the other group of gifts that will just lay around the house for a year or two, then get bagged up and disposed of.

Out With the Old, In With the New

Right now we have three big bags full of stuff sitting in our entry way waiting to be donated. It struck me how ridiculous it was that only a day before Black Friday, we were cleaning out stuff, to make room for more stuff we’ll get over the holidays. We’re actually not participating in the mad shopping dash the day after Thanksgiving since we’re out of town this year. However, had we been at home, I think those three big bags would have kept me at home with my wallet closed.

Fashion Cycle

It seems one of the worst offending items is clothing. We buy more shirts, shoes, pants, belts, and purses even though the ones we have are still comfortable, functional, and probably even still fashionable. We haul bags of old clothes to Salvation Army then empty our wallets to fill their spots with brand new items. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me but it’s in the clothing industry’s best interest to make it seem very sensible to you. Just keep in mind that many of those retail purchases you make in the next month are destined for the donation pile.

Come on, sign up and give it a try.  The first 30 days are free, if you don’t like it just bring it back.

Sound familiar? How many times have you been talked into signing up for a service or buying a subscription because they offer a free trial?

“I’ll just see what it’s like”, you tell yourself.  “If I decide I don’t want it, I’ll just cancel.” The trial period goes by quickly, life gets busy, and suddenly the time to cancel has passed and you’ve been billed for the first month.  You call back to cancel when you see the charge come through on your card.  Sometimes they’ll give you a pro-rated refund other times they won’t give back a dime.

The free trial is an effective technique for sellers.  Their ideal scenario is that you will fall in love with their product or service and decide you must have it.  Another common situation is one where you aren’t really using their service but forget you signed up and the recurring payments on your credit card stay under your radar for a while before you cancel.

Of course a free trial can be a valuable offer to you as a consumer if there is a product or service you’d really like to try out before committing to it.  Just be aware that companies can use the free trial offer to entice you into closing the deal.

Warning Signs
• First 30 Days Free  • Absolutely No Obligation 
• Risk Free Trial        • First Issue Free
 

Tactic In Action
When I bought my last cell phone several years ago Sprint PCS was offering a 30 day trial of their Vision service that allowed you to browse their online content with your phone.  The salesperson convinced me to try the service when I activated my phone and sure enough the trial period came and went and I didn’t cancel. 

Not only did I get charged after the 30 days were over, Sprint also billed me for my “free trial”, they “forgot” to give it to me for free. The half hour I had to spend on the phone convincing customer service they had billed me incorrectly for something that was suppose to be free was definitely not worth the few minutes of time I surfed around the web on my phone.

Protect Your Paycheck
Trial Period Reminder – As soon as you sign up for a trial period, mark on your calendar two days before it ends to remind yourself to cancel.

Beware the Asterisk – Many free trial ads are followed by an asterisk that give the fine print of the offer.  Make sure you know the rules before giving anyone your credit card number.

Just Say No – Often times the process of canceling a free trial is more hassle than it’s worth.  Unless you’re actively looking to review and buy a product or service, just say no to free trials.

Sales Tactics
Free Trial Offer is the 7^th sales trick in the Sales Tactics Revealed series. Be sure to check out the first six if you haven’t already: Don’t Miss Out, You’ll Be Sorry, Buy Now, Pay Later, Rebate Ransom, Sales Events, and Preferred Customer.

I’m not one for spending money.  It’s actually one of my least favorite things to do.  However, there is something to be said for preemptive spending that can help save you time and money.

The Crisis
The story begins like this. I arrived home late yesterday evening after a long, horrible day at work to discover the router in our small home network was kaput.  This is a huge problem for me since I spend many hours a night working online so I needed to get up and running as soon as possible.

The Unprepared Scenario
The plot of the story could have been a stressed-out, frustrated guy racing around an electronics store before it closed looking for a good deal or maybe spending the next day at work shopping online and placing a rush order on a router.

When you need something in a hurry the objective shopping and price comparison process can go out the window.  You’ll likely spend more than you want in order to buy something you’re not quite sure is what you’re looking for.  Top it off with expedited delivery if you’re shopping online and the costs of a crisis can really add up.

The Strategic Shopper Scenario
Luckily for me, I had done some preemptive shopping so the story has a happy ending.  Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t make a specific trip looking to buy something, shopping trips aren’t usually my style.  I happened upon a great deal for a Belkin wireless router when a local store went out of business and I snatched it up to store for future use.

Upon diagnosis of a dead router, I made a trip to the storage room and had the new router up and running in 15 minutes. Since I wasn’t scrambling around in crisis mode I didn’t have to spend a premium to get new equipment quickly, even better, I bought it ahead of time for a big discount!  Plus it allowed me to barely miss a beat in my work, which is worth some money itself.

Strategic Shopping Questions
Of course you don’t want to overdo it and spend too much on strategic shopping.  The key is whether an item will save you time and money down the road. Here are some questions you can ask when considering making a strategic purchase:

– Will the item need to be replaced or upgraded in the future?  If so, you’ll have to buy it eventually, why not buy it now for a good deal?

– Will your purchase hold its value?  How long can you keep the item in your storage area without it becoming outdated and unusable?

– Is it a large enough discount to make it worth your while?  The percentage or total dollar amount of savings is up to you.

– Can you store it easily?  Where will you keep the item for an extended period once you bring it home?

Remember the high school cafeteria where all the coolest kids sat at their own table?  You wouldn’t likely sit there without an invitation, what some people wouldn’t give for an invite like that.  Hopefully we’ve all grown up some since high school but everyone likes to feel special and a preferred customer invitation can still be hard to turn down.

Retailers love to pull out the Preferred Customer tactic when gunning for sales. A common approach is to send out a letter or email announcing a big sales event that is open to special customers only. “How did I become a preferred customer?”, you ask yourself.  “Oh well, who cares, I don’t want to miss out on preferred customer pricing”.

The truth of course is that retailers invite you because they prefer that you spend your money with them instead of someone else, making you a preferred customer. 

Warning Signs 
• Everyone Else Pays $100, You Pay $70  • Invitation Only
• Available Only for Preferred Customers  
• Use Your Preferred Customer Card

Tactic In Action
I received some sales letters from a local company a while back that epitomize the Preferred Customer tactic.  Here are some excerpts:

I truly appreciate your business. To prove it I’ve created an exclusive savings event just for you, something that WILL NOT BE ADVERTISED to the general public and will be available by invitation only!

Just mention this letter’s Special Financing and Savings and simply show your salesperson the enclosed card!

Because you’re a Preferred Customer, we want to offer you the price normally reserved for our Supplier Representatives for a LIMITED TIME only.  Supplier Pricing is the special low price offered to the representatives who sell supplies and services to us.

Offering Supplier Pricing to the public is a very rare event. On top of this special pricing, you can take advantage of Half-Off Delivery too!

What do you think?  Would this letter send you running as a preferred customer to the sale?

Protect Your Paycheck
At the bottom of the sales letter there is an interesting footnote:

“Because of the competitive nature of our business, some items may already be priced at or below Supplier Pricing.”

What I hear them saying is that they already offer the equivalent of Supplier Pricing on some items to the general public. If anyone can buy things at this price, what benefit is there to being a preferred customer?

In general it’s best to steer clear of Preferred Customer events.  They’re just a gimmick to get you into the store and give the retailer an opportunity to sell to you.  If you do attend one, remind the salesperson you’re a “preferred customer”. Tell them as a preferred customer you want special pricing below the advertised rates.  Chances are you’ll get a big fat NO.  If they’re willing to negotiate further then by all means take advantage of your preferred customer status : )

Sales Tactics
Preferred Customer is the 6^th sales trick in the Sales Tactics Revealed series. Be sure to check out the first five if you haven’t already: Don’t Miss Out, You’ll Be Sorry, Buy Now, Pay Later, Rebate Ransom, and Sales Events.

Today is a good day to shop.  As was yesterday and will be tomorrow.  At least that’s what retailers would like you to believe.  Having a Sales Event is a favorite weapon in the arsenal of sellers and the fifth in the Sales Tactics Revealed series.

Shop, Shop, Shop
Why is it that every holiday seems to be all about shopping?  We finally get a day off work, a break from earning money all week.  We finally have time all to ourselves.  At last, we can forget about the office and do whatever we want, yet the retailers get us to hit the stores looking for deals.  How do they convince us, by having a “fabulous” sales event!

Reasons to Shop
The sellers have turned every holiday or life event into either a day we shop or a day we shop to prepare for. Every time you walk into a store, they are reminding you of some event that you need to spend money on, for example:

• Beginning of Summer
• Back to School
• Father’s Day
• Christmas
• Thanksgiving
• 4th of July
• Easter
• Labor Day
• March Madness
• Mother’s Day
• Valentines Day
• Halloween
• New Years
• Memorial Day
• Graduation

When there is no holiday or life event, they make up reasons to have a big sales event:

• Inventory Sale
• Customer Appreciation Event
• Spring Cleaning Sale

Warning Signs 
• 4th of July Blowout   • Holiday Sales Event
• Open now for our special Thanksgiving offer
• Countdown: 3 weeks, 2 days, 5 days until Christmas

Tactic in Action
Why do we drag ourselves out of bed the day after Thanksgiving?  We have a day off, why can’t we just enjoy it?  Why do we have to spend all day long being stressed out and waiting in line?   I’ll tell you why, Black Friday is the first day of the year some retailers start to make a profit.  They WANT you in those stores, they NEED you in those stores, and they’ll do whatever they can to get you there and spending money. 

Protect Your Paycheck
Shop Offseason
Retailers will sometimes stock up on certain items to sell during a sales event.  Think decorative lights during Christmas, candy for Halloween, or summer clothes for Beginning of Summer Sale.  Once the event, holiday, or season is over they may find themselves with too much of certain products and start discounting it for faster sale.  Try to shop at the end of sales events instead of the beginning and you can save money.

Sales Tactics
Sales Event is the 5^th sales trick in the Sales Tactics Revealed series. Be sure to check out the first four as well: Don’t Miss Out, You’ll Be Sorry, Buy Now, Pay Later, and Rebate Ransom.

We have your money!  We’ll give it back if you follow these specific steps.  Make one mistake and we’ll keep the cash!

Sound like a ransom note to you?  Think again, it’s actually the crumpled rebate receipt in your wallet!  When you buy something with a mail-in rebate the seller is holding the money you “saved” for ransom.  The crazy part is that we willingly volunteer our money for ransom AND feel like we are saving money! The Rebate Ransom technique is the next trick we’ll discuss in the Sales Tactics Revealed series.[Photo credit ninjapoodle]

Three Strikes You’re Out
In the heat of shopping frenzy we’re overcome by the seeming great bargain and fall for the rebate, strike one. We pay full price and add the rebate to our “To Do” list. Life gets in the way and we put off submitting the paperwork, strike two.  The day before the deadline we rush to mail in the paperwork and overlook a minute detail in the fine print, strike three. We’re out the money!

If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone.  According to a Business Week article from 2005 an estimated 40% of people fail to apply or have their application rejected for rebates every year. This is a very effective tactic; retailers get us to focus on the discount price while still charging the full amount.  With so many people not redeeming their rebates for one reason or another they’ve found a way to offer discounts without actually honoring it almost half the time!

Warning Signs
• Only $1 after Rebate!   • Free After Rebate

Tactic in Action
I think most everyone has encountered this scenario at least once so an example probably isn’t needed.  Whether we’re too busy to mail it in, we lose the receipt, we don’t feel like sorting through the terms & conditions of each rebate, or the check just never comes there are many reasons why rebates fail to pay out.  Despite all these problems, we continue to fall for this sales tactic.  What can we do to protect ourselves against it?

Protect Your Paycheck
Rebate Reminder
Often times, the price after rebate really is a good deal IF you can get your money back.  Before you decide to purchase the item, schedule the date when you’ll mail in the rebate information.  Write the date the rebate is due on your receipt at the checkout counter.  Then when you get home login to Rebate Reminder and setup a reminder so you don’t let your money go unclaimed.

Time Is Money
Remember, time is money.  How much time will you spend getting back your money from the rebate company? Is it worth the money you’ll save? Sometimes it feels like sending in your rebate info is more paperwork than buying a house or doing your taxes!  Want to see how much time other people have wasted, just do a Google search on “rebate hell”.

What Box Do I Check for Tax-back?
When you purchase an item with a mail-in rebate you pay tax on the full price, not the price after rebate.  Guess what, there’s no box on the rebate form to check to get your money back. On a big ticket item such as home appliances, big screen televisions, or computers that tax can add up.  Remind yourself that you’re taxed on the purchase price, not price after rebate.

Sales Tactics
Rebate Ransom in the 4^th sales trick in the Sales Tactics Revealed series. Make sure to familiarize yourself with the first three as well: Don’t Miss Out, You’ll Be Sorry, and Buy Now, Pay Later.  If you’ve gotten something out of this series, you can subscribe via feedreader or email for coverage of upcoming sales tactics.

Think back to a shopping trip where you almost made a purchase but wisely walked away because you couldn’t afford it.  Bad news, the marketing gurus have found a way to stop that from happening!  When your better judgment screams NO, they use the “Buy Now, Pay Later” sales tactic to ease you into a big purchase. 

This tactic is a retailer’s dream come true.  They can sell to us whether we can afford it or not!  They get us to spend money we don’t even have on what they’re selling.  Instead of feeling uneasy about being able to pay for it, we feel satisfied, like we got something for nothing.

All About the Payment
Buy Now, Pay Later is dangerous for consumers because it puts our focus on the size of the payments, instead of whether we can afford the item.  The sellers love this approach; it breaks down our resistance to spending and makes their sale so much easier.

Using this tactic, the people selling to us delay our decision of whether we can afford something until AFTER we agree to buy it.  The financial implications of the sale sneaks up on us after the sellers already have our money and we’ve passed the return period.  The bad news is this isn’t even the worst thing about the tactic.

Guess What, There’s Interest!
First the retailers convince us to buy from them using their store brand credit card, whether we have the money or not.  Then they add in finance charges on the money we borrow to buy something from them.  So they fool us into feeling as though we can afford their item and then jack up the price by tacking on exorbitant interest!

This tactic works out pretty well for the seller, more sales and extra interest income.  Unfortunately, for every winner there is a loser.  While they make out, we consumers get hosed.

Warning Signs 
• Low Monthly Payment       • No Payments for 1 Year
• Only $40 a Month            • No Money Down!
• 90 Days Same As Cash     • Just 3 Easy Payments! 

Tactic In Action
“I’m paying in cash”, I said for what felt like the millionth time.  The blank stare made it obvious he didn’t encounter this situation frequently and wasn’t sure what to try next.

The Buy Now, Pay Later tactic began soon after the test drive, once we started talking dollars with the car salesman. “What kind of payments are you looking to make?”, the salesman asked. “It’s not size of the payment, it’s about the price of the car!”, I shot back.  “I’ll be paying in cash and am looking to get the lowest price I can.”  He furrowed his brow then launched into his pitch.  “I can put you into this one here for under $400 a month.”

After re-iterating I was paying cash, he came back with the same tactic again. “No point in paying it all up front, how low do you want your payments to be?”  The Buy Now, Pay Later tactic must usually be so successful that he didn’t have any other tricks up his sleeve!  After several more of his attempts, I finally made it clear I was interested in the final price and wouldn’t be distracted by talk of low payments.  After we negotiated a sales price it was on to the sales manager’s office.

“I’m paying in cash”, I responded to the manager’s spiel about a special financing offer. He scowled and asked, “Why pay for it all now?  Why not keep the money and finance through us?”  After several rounds of refusing financing he realized they weren’t to make any money off us via this tactic.

At that point, he mixed in the You’ll Be Sorry tactic.  He talked about the potential problems an extended warranty would cover and “strongly encouraged” us to buy it.  I told him of our plan to put money away every month to cover any future auto expenses, this way we’d only have to pay in the event something went wrong.  “If you buy the extended warranty you’ll be covered right away.  You don’t have to pay for it up front; we can roll it into your loan.”  Once again, I reminded him we were paying cash and firmly refused the extended warranty.

Upon realizing we weren’t going to fall for either the You’ll Be Sorry or Buy Now, Pay Later tactics, the manager quickly finished the paperwork and rushed us out of his office so he could focus on the next customer.

Protect Your Paycheck
The Buy Now, Pay Later tactic can eventually lead to mountains of debt if not overcome.  Here are some things to keep in mind as you try to beat this strategy.

Lifetime Payment Plan
You can pay for anything given enough time.  According to the US Census Bureau the annual household income for 2006 was around $48,000.  Based on those numbers, the average person earning this income each year would earn well over $1 million in their lifetime. So if you think about it, on a payment plan you can afford most things being sold to you, right?

Let’s stop and think about this for a minute.  Think about how much you hate making payments every month.  Why create more for yourself? Who wants to be on a payment plan their whole life?

You Really Will Pay Later
The majority of people who buy on a payment plan end up paying more than sticker price for an item.  Interest charges or late fees can add up to 35% onto the total price.  Sellers know if you fall for Buy Now, Pay Later, they can keep making money off you with late fees and interest charges far into the future.

Your Electronic Speeding Sign
Before easy credit, we only spent what we had.  Now companies are extending credit to practically everyone and we can spend on whatever someone wants to sell us.  Charge cards make it so easy to swipe and carry; we often don’t realize how much we’re spending until we get the bill at the end of the month. What we need is something to remind us of how much we’re spending day to day.

How many times have you cruised past one of these electronic speed signs on the side of the road and been surprised at how fast you were actually going?  Today’s powerful and comfortable cars and (relatively) smooth highway systems make it easy to be unaware of our driving speed.  Similar to the way charge cards allow us to obliviously spend over our budget. 

Some companies offer a feature that you can think of as an electronic speeding sign for your credit card.  You can setup telephone and email alerts to let you know if you have spent more on your card than you have budgeted.  Adding alerts for charges over a certain amount, a certain percentage change in your balance, or a certain balance exceeded can be your own electronic speeding sign to remind you that you’re falling for the Buy Now, Pay Later tactic.

Sales Tactics
That wraps up the third sales trick in the Sales Tactics Revealed series. If you haven’t already, be sure to read the first two, Don’t Miss Out and You’ll Be Sorry.  If you’ve gotten something out of this series, you can subscribe via feedreader or email for coverage of upcoming sales tactics.

What emotion could make you sign a blank check with no questions asked?  How about FEAR?  It makes us do crazy things.  Sellers use this tactic to scare us into spending money.  If you don’t spend money for this now, You’ll Be Sorry, later!  Sound familiar? If so, you may have fallen victim to the second sales tactic in the Sales Tactic Revealed series.

Fear of the Unknown
As we go about our lives, there is always a chance something unpleasant could happen.  We don’t fret over the countless things that could go wrong because it’s likely they won’t.  That is, until someone informs us of potential danger and offers to sell us protection against it.  They know if they can trigger fear in us their chances of making money just went up.

This tactic can be used for a wide range of products and services.  Many of you may have encountered this trick through a sales pitch for an extended warranty or some type of insurance.  It can also be used as an upsell to convince you to upgrade to the higher quality product that won’t break down or the service with better coverage.

Fear Factor
The sellers frighten us into paying money NOW for a product or service that either prevents or covers a POTENTIAL FUTURE “threat”.  So they get our money today and they know chances are good they’ll never have to give us our money back.

The crazy part is, they take our money and we feel better!  They scared us into parting with our hard earned paycheck and now we feel safer.   Who do you think wins when we fall for this tactic?

Warning Signs
• Don’t Let it Happen To You! • Sign Up & Sleep Easy
• Put Your Fears to Rest        • No More Worries
• Don’t Become a Statistic!    • New Victim Every 5 Seconds!
• Let Us Protect You!           • Don’t Wait Too Long! 

Tactic In Action
A friend of ours rented a car recently and unknowingly encountered a master of the “You’ll Be Sorry” tactic.  As she signed the paperwork for the week long rental the sneaky salesman asked, “Would you like to add the protection of rental car insurance for just $10 a day?”  She declined, mentioning her auto insurance covered rental cars. 

“How high is your deductible?” he asked, his mouth watering for an upsell.  Upon learning she was responsible for the first $500 he moved in for the kill.  “Well, would you rather pay $70 or $500?”, he asked persuasively.  He followed it up with the knock-out punch,“Some insurance doesn’t cover all the potential costs of an accident.  You’d be better off paying less and getting full coverage.”  The fear reaction kicked in overriding her logic and our friend caved, signing up for the insurance.

Our friend lived with the “threat” of paying a $500 deductible every day she drove her own car.  What was different about the rental car?  Nothing, of course!  She was just duped by the “You’ll Be Sorry” tactic.  The salesman comparing the cost of rental insurance with the amount of her deductible was definitely just a ploy.  The $70 insurance was a definite expense vs. a $500 deductible she probably wouldn’t have to pay.  Of course, all he had to do was use this tactic and her logic went out the window.

Protect Your Paycheck
You’ve likely experienced the “You’ll Be Sorry” tactic before and were probably aware they were laying it on in an effort to make a sale.  Here are some things you can do to prepare for the next onslaught and think about when you’re under attack.

Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself
Do you want to spend your money on things you need & want or something the sellers scare you into buying?  It’s your money, how dare they frighten you into spending it!  If you started spending your hard earned money on products and services to protect you against potential threats, you’d be broke before you finished signing up for them all!

Build a Contingency Fund
Create your own contingency reserve.  Put aside the money you would spend each month for the service into a separate bank account.  You get to keep your money if nothing goes wrong and if it does you’re covered!

Second Opinion
Always get a second opinion.  It doesn’t have to be from an expert, just someone who has knowledge of the item and doesn’t have a vested interest in making a sale.  Use your resources: friends, family, co-workers, or search the Internet to validate the claims of whoever is trying to sell to you.

Check Your Coverage
How many times have you tried to cash in on some type of coverage or return a product because it didn’t protect as promised and gotten the line, “I’m sorry, that’s not covered under category 17.2a”?  First they scare you into buying the protection and then when you try to redeem it they try and get out of it!  If you do go for the product or service, make sure you read the fine print.

Sales Tactics
An understanding and awareness of the strategies that others use to sell to you can save you a lot of money.  If you haven’t already, be sure to read the introduction to Sales Tactics Revealed and check out the details on the first tactic, “Don’t Miss Out”.