Tag Archives: CanvasChamp

A 60% Discount So You Can Pay 400% More – Seriously

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We’ve talked a number of times about the games retailers play on discounts.
If you search my stories you’ll find a number of them that are quite
eye-opening.

This one is another perfect example. I am trying to get a custom canvas
print of 12×54 inches and re-ordering some client gifts, which are standard
12×12 inch. The custom one is tricky to price out – the standard 12×12 is a
no-brainer: It should be around $14.

Here is the canvas champ shopping cart where they’re currently parked
because the price isn’t what I’m willing to pay:

 

$18 for each, then a 15% discount and free shipping. I’ve paid from $11 to
$16 over the past few years and multiple orders…so I’ll wait for a while.

Here is the other company called canvas pop out of Ontario. Their Black
Friday promotion is a 60% discount. Wow – who wouldn’t be excited by that! But
their business model is to use insane pretend retail prices and then apply the
discount that’s totally useless. After all, it’s not the discount. It’s what
you end up paying!!

$181 for the same $14 canvas! Then the 60% discount and STILL a net price of $72!

In other words: Do you want a huge 60% discount and still end up paying FOUR TIMES MORE? Why do they do it? Because very few people do the math or the comparison shopping. That has to be true or they would immediately change their pricing got-ya!

My $20 Trip Halfway Around the World

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OK, so it wasn’t me that traveled from India to Canada, just my two canvas prints. If you have any doubts as to how interconnected our world is, and how critical global shipping, and thus the supply chain for almost every company, this trip is a great indicator.

Two weeks ago I talked about having to order two canvas prints online because I couldn’t get close in price attempting to shop local. Just scroll back a bit to find the story. Fast forward to last week when Fedex delivered the prints. I had purchased from CanvasChamp (Scarlet Prints LLP) previously, so I was familiar with their pricing, hit and miss customer service, the need to look online for coupons and discounts not found on their home page, and that their production is done in India with websites in the US, Canada, Australia and pretty much most countries making you think you are, in fact, buying sort-of local.

Since Fedex was late in their delivery, it was purely by chance that I tracked my order with them. That was worth it – and quite the eye opener!

Yes. You’re seeing seven stops covering half the world for my 4 kg (9 lb) 77x77x5 cm (31x31x2 inch) package: From their plant in Ahmedabad, GJ, India to Mumbai, India 524 km. Then 1934 km to the Fedex hub in Dubai, Arab Emirates and on to their main Europe hub (Somma Lombardo) in Italy – another 6083 km stop-over. From Italy, my well-traveled order went to their US Hub in Memphis 7894 km and then onto Richmond, BC, Canada (2508 km) for the last customs clearance before the 7th flight of 1156 km to Edmonton International Airport, and an old Dodge Caravan from there to my house.

A trip of more than 20,000 km (almost 12,500 miles) for an order that cost me just over $70 including shipping! The world really is a very small place and incredibly inter-connected and inter-dependent. In the case of this order, and the vast majority of what we purchased from Walmart, Amazon or any Dollar Store, it is necessary to get the prices we pay. The map for towels from Walmart or wrapping paper and food containers from the Dollar Store would be the same – it would just be containers, shipping routes and a lot of ocean maps!

When politicians and economists talk about doing away with this globalization, are they just telling us what they think we want to hear or are they serious? Because I haven’t heard anyone give us the heads up that it would mean a double or tripling of prices, and a Dollar Store that’ll have to be called the Five Dollar And-Up Store…