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RETAILERS NEED A BAILOUT

Price Cut On Hobo Beans

Now 30 percent off!All of your aspirational yuppie mall brands like Pottery Barn and Williams Sonoma and Coach (which used to be legitimately fancy, years ago, before they decided to start selling loudly branded handbags to Bethesdan tweens) are having to lower prices permanently because nobody has money anymore and they don’t want to get people used to insane 75% off sales all the time.

Back in December, retailers had to cut prices like crazy just to get inventory off their shelves. They were literally (figuratively) giving shit away for free (a very steep discount)! But that’s no way to run a business forever, and so retailers are now just adjusting their prices downward in the hopes that this will be a slightly more successful strategy for the long term. Now instead of paying a millionty dollars for a Pottery Barn couch, you can pay .7 millionty dollars for a Pottery Barn couch, any day of the week. And then you can live under it for just a fraction of what you’d pay to live in a house!

Prices Fall To Match A New Frugality [Washington Post]


9:31 AM on Tue May 12 2009
By Sara K. Smith
3773 Views

  1. norbizness says at 9:36 am, May 12th, 2009

    And here I was thinking we could solve our impending trillion-dollar deficits with a 500% tax hike on melon-ballers.

  2. Estus Washington Pirkle says at 9:37 am, May 12th, 2009

    Boxes out in the back alley are still cheaper.

  3. sanantonerose says at 9:38 am, May 12th, 2009

    I’ll never understand why a pair of jeans should ever cost $100 or more. Or why people buy them.

  4. ManchuCandidate says at 9:39 am, May 12th, 2009

    Wow, thanks SKS. I’m glad I read this post at a time when I need new and more upscale furnishings for my laminated refrigerator box.

  5. High time. Who shops at these places, anyway? Not Wonkette commenters, I’ll wager. Also, ‘recession-era’ is a funny phrase. How long until it’s an ‘era’?

    TGY, Est Era Humanum.

  6. zenferret says at 9:43 am, May 12th, 2009

    ManchuCandidate: You can afford lamination?

  7. freakishlystrong says at 9:44 am, May 12th, 2009

    TGY: So true, I do all my shopping at Beans, Boxes and Beyond…

  8. x111e7thst says at 9:47 am, May 12th, 2009

    sanantonerose: I’m trading all my jeans for hobo beans.

  9. charlesdegoal says at 9:48 am, May 12th, 2009

    Deflation ain’t just a sexual act

  10. Editor SK Smith says at 9:48 am, May 12th, 2009

    sanantonerose: Because they make your ass look THAT GOOD.

  11. Bellevue still has the Trust Fund Babies livin large. They have 75$ an hour bowling.

  12. hobospacejunkie says at 9:52 am, May 12th, 2009

    Uh, I don’t wanna alarm anyone, but if if prices are going down shouldn’t it be called a depression?

  13. springfield_meltdown says at 9:53 am, May 12th, 2009

    TGY: I’m trying to figure out why Hayden-Harnett is advertising here. Very lovely handbags with $300+ price tags.
    Sara K. Smith: Which is why I never even try them. No use tempting my broke ass.

  14. Bwahahahahahhahahahahhahahahahha.

    I mean, oh, how terrible. Wherever will we obtain a $55 soap dispenser?!

  15. bitchincamaro says at 10:02 am, May 12th, 2009

    Silly Wonkette. Everybody knows Coach has been cold subsidizing those stupid bags with their goat cheese empire. For realz.

    http://www.coachfarm.com/

  16. Yay deflation! And just in time for the HDTV turnover, too. A lot of the fast food places around here have been going down, too; lunch is cheaper. Unfortunately the beer and cigarettes have still been going up, even though they are what people most need to deal with a crippling depression.

    springfield_meltdown: I had never even heard of that company before, but am not going to complain about the biki-chick ads (that still avoid looking like porn, unlike the old American Apparel Ads).

  17. Big Ass Belle says at 10:13 am, May 12th, 2009

    Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Away we go, round and down and round and down the deflationary death spiral!

  18. gjdodger says at 10:19 am, May 12th, 2009

    And Kroger–this is true–has announced they’re donating their rotten food that people won’t eat to the Peoria Zoo. If it works, they’ll donate their rotten food elsewhere in the Rust Belt to zoos.

  19. Roger the Shrubber says at 10:28 am, May 12th, 2009

    Soon we’ll have to eat our census takers’ livers with hobo beans and a nice vintage box wine. Slurpslurpslurpslurp!

  20. Chickensmack says at 10:32 am, May 12th, 2009

    Why does Pier One have such an allure, when everything is an import these days?

  21. Woodwards Friend says at 10:33 am, May 12th, 2009

    At these prices I can’t afford not to buy!

  22. sanantonerose says at 10:34 am, May 12th, 2009

    Sara K. Smith: Some jeans!

  23. prophet1195 says at 10:38 am, May 12th, 2009

    Beans, beans, magical beans……

    Goes good with Walmart Red.

  24. Mild Midwesterner says at 10:39 am, May 12th, 2009

    Say what you will about the prices, but those chocolate croissants from the Williams Sonoma catalogue are delightfully scrumptious.

  25. BlueStateLibtard says at 10:41 am, May 12th, 2009

    Good point on Coach bags, they used to be classy and very well-made until they started sprinkling them with fake gold crap and started making them look like hooker/tweens bags.

  26. Kingbee says at 11:05 am, May 12th, 2009

    ManchuCandidate: Laminated! Ooooooohh! How much did that set you back?

  27. nappyduggs says at 11:05 am, May 12th, 2009

    Does this indicate a change in gas prices? Get it? Beans? Gas? Classic.

  28. dijetlo says at 11:20 am, May 12th, 2009

    Kingbee: It’s Saran wrap, he just calls it “laminate”.

  29. El Pinche says at 11:44 am, May 12th, 2009

    Hobo beans are the leading cause of choking deaths among hobos between the ages of 1 and 99.

  30. Kingbee says at 12:29 pm, May 12th, 2009

    dijetlo: Ha — in other words, just another hobo McMansion!

  31. Fuck that, I love 75% sales. Just bought 5 shirts, a dress and a pair of shoes in Ross that costs me $140 altogether when they should’ve costs me $600 at least. Sales make you feel like a winner!!

  32. Gallowglass says at 12:46 pm, May 12th, 2009

    Estus Washington Pirkle: I think you’re looking at this all wrong. If people buy new furniture at the lowered rate then they will have to discard the boxes. That means we all get new boxes/housing. Win, win!

  33. El Pinche says at 1:20 pm, May 12th, 2009

    sanantonerose: I tried irregular jeans for a while. But I couldn’t live with accidental bell bottoms and crotch stitching that chafed my balls into a fine dust.

    That’s right, thanks Levi Store Outlet, i have no balls because of you.

  34. arclight says at 3:16 pm, May 12th, 2009
  35. sanantonerose says at 3:57 pm, May 12th, 2009

    El Pinche: Well my god man, put on some underwear!

    I buy jeans at Melrose and Ross that cost $15 tops and they make my ass look just fine. But then again, being a librarian, I’m not exactly a fashionista.

  36. windupbird says at 9:58 pm, May 12th, 2009

    I moved in Feb. from the third floor to the the first floor, my couch would not fit through my new door, I had to throw it away. I wanted to buy a new one with my tax refund, then I did my taxes and found out that I owe money. Anyway, even if I did have a refund, I wouldn’t buy a PB sofa full price.

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