Stores and manufacturers both want to increase their sales, and the easiest way to attract shoppers is to offer great deals. To keep profits up, they tend to limit the savings to a few items, while keeping prices higher on other items to balance their losses. If your objective is to save money, you want to maximize your savings on sales items, and limit your purchase of higher priced items. You can achieve that by watching the sales cycles.
Every item likely has a sale cycle. For example, few shoppers want to feel like they are buying old stuff. So products packaged in holiday, special occasion, sporting event, or special promotion packaging will go on clearance after the event. This month, April, will bring Easter and Passover packaging. These items need to be sold quickly after mid-April to make room for summer goods. Similarly, March Madness basketball playoffs may increase sales of sports drinks and soda, but promotions in the month of May will focus on baseball, so items packaged for basketball promotions will also have to be cleared rapidly in late April.
Produce growing seasons also create sales. March’s frozen food sales make room for the new spring and summer crops to be packaged and frozen, or canned, and placed on store shelves.
Another sale cycle to watch for: new product promotions. Right before launching a new product, manufacturers like to clear our old products of the same type. So, look for clearance prices right before a new product is announced (if you take consumer surveys or are on email newsletters from brands, you will probably get advanced notice of new products). Once a new product arrives, look for major promotions to clear the first wave of the product. Stores don’t stock products that don’t sell, so companies want to “prove” that the product should be stocked.
As always, if you combine a well thought out list of items you use regularly with a careful approach to buying those items during sales cycles, you can cut your monthly bills for food and other household consumables significantly.
For April, deals to keep your eye out for each year include:
Sales/Deals:
Easter/Passover/other
- Easter Seal theme for insert coupons and promotions
- Eggs
- Ham
- Asparagus
- Butter
- Coconut
- Horseradish
- Some Jewish/Passover items not found during other months
Earth Day promos-
- Organic foods
- Eco-conscious products
- Energy savers
- Go Organic for Earth Day! Coupon booklet
- Coupon inserts for environmental causes
- Usually free, or promotions, on reusable totes and shopping bags
Daylight Savings Time promos-
- Batteries
- smoke detectors
- carbon monoxide monitors
Clearance items:
- Olive Oil (April starts the new season)
- Winter items
- Popsicle, ice cream, frozen novelties, etc (this is the time when “last year’s flavors” are cleared out, packaging redesigned, etc., to make room for the new products in April)
Occasions:
- April Fool’s Day
- Earth Day
- Arbor Day
Other Promotions this month:
- National Garden Week
- Medication Safety Week
- Income Tax (various promotions)
- Secretary’s/Administrative Professional’s Week
- National Soyfoods Month
- National Window Safety Week
Produce in Peak Season:
- Artichokes
- Asparagus
- Beets
- Broccoli
- Cabbages
- Carrots
- Grapefruit
- Hass Avocado
- Mushrooms, Morels
- Onions, Spring
- Onions, Sweet
- Peas
- Rhubarb
- Spring Salad Mix