Shopping For a Bargain

I am always on the lookout for a bargain in the sales. I hardly ever buy any clothing at full price any more (unless it's something I really can't resist!) It has gotten to the point where my mum doesn't believe me when I say I've only paid a fraction of the price for something new and lovely. There are some necessary tips if you want to excel at bargain hunting and here are a few that spring to mind.

• Sign up to email updates

Email updates can be annoying, we all hate being constantly spammed by companies clamoring for our attention and tugging at our purse strings. However there are some benefits to email updates - you will be considered a VIP customer with a lot of companies and they like to reward you for putting up with the bothersome emails with some great offers such as preview sales or money off codes. Urban Outfitters are particularly good for this. I recently had a (little) splurge on the Urban Outfitters website as they gave me exclusive access to their sale before everyone else!! It was great, they had all the sizes and they offered me a code to instantly take 50% off the full price items in advance of the sale. The trick is not to get carried away - don't go crazy and start buying up everything in sight because you're "saving money". Look out for items you've seen previously, coveted and put down due to the extortionate price tag. I'd had my eyes on a MinkPink skirt in Urban Outfitters since it had arrived in store, I loved it, I had to have it... but it was £50. I simply couldn't justify spending £50 on one skirt which would be amazing in the Summer and not quite so useful in Autumn/Winter. There it was in the pre-sale and I had a 50% off code... Of course I bought it. I could definitely spend £25 on it, a much more reasonable price for a skirt.  I indulged in one other purchase too, a gorgeous Paris blouse by Cooperative. 

Cooperative Paris Blouse from Urban Outfitters

Again, I'd seen it in the store (I really need to stop going in there, it's torture...) and fallen in love. I love anything to do with Paris and the material felt light and luxurious but at £38, I wasn't willing to purchase it just yet. Instead I got it for a mere £19 which I was very happy with. I had to pay £3.99 postage (Tip: free postage if you spend over £50 and they often do discount codes for postage at just £1 so keep an eye out!) but altogether I spent only £47.99 (inc. p&p) which is still cheaper than what I almost paid for that beautiful skirt.

Here it is: Ta-dah!

• Sometimes you have to play the waiting game...

It's not easy. Nobody said it was, that is why you are so highly rewarded with savings if you can wait it out. I have worked in Retail for several years so I know that sales work in waves. You get the initial phase, a lot of stuff goes in, some of it up to 50% off. Don't panic, when a sale starts they still have LOADS of stock and it gets replenished so wait a few weeks. You can always have  a look at the website (or sign up for those email updates) to see when phase two starts. Phase two is when the good stuff starts to go in! The stuff they hadn't previously reduced because it's so beautiful that it is still selling well at full price. Now is perfectly acceptable to start shopping but if you fancy a risk, wait for phase three. Phase three - pandemonium! 75% off! Aaahhh!! 

My best example of playing the waiting game was with a pair of gorgeous deep purple velvet, platform heeled chelsea boots by Deena & Ozzy. They were £120 and the most beautiful things I had ever seen, they were gaudy and kitsch but in all the right ways. Even if I hardly wore them, I just wanted them as something beautiful to look at. There are very few things that I am willing to pay £120 for and, as tempted as I was, a pair of shoes that I would hardly get to wear was not one of them.

So I waited...

A 20% off code came a long, tempting. Very tempting, but they would still have been a whopping £96. No, that wasn't good enough.

Then came the sale - Phase One and they went down to £60. I reasoned with myself that that was half price and a lot better than £120 or £96... But still a LOT of money.

So I waited some more...

And JACKPOT! The shoes went 75% off (£40) and I was able to get student discount on them so I ended up paying a measly £36 for the dream shoes that I had lusted over for so long!

• Students - register on Unidays

Oh Unidays... No more googling "student discount voucher codes", simply log in to your Unidays account and copy and paste the code provided. A lot of companies are offering discounts through Unidays now, with up to 20% brands such as UGG, Apple, Cath Kidston and ASOS (the list goes on and on, I could be here a while so check it out yourself.) This is an easy way to, not only save money on full price items, but sometimes get a little extra off those sale goodies too! It's always worth a try, pop in the voucher code at the checkout and see if it will accept it because you will be pleasantly surprised. 

But that's not even the best part! I graduated a year ago and my Unidays account STILL works! I can't get away with using my student ID in the shops but online I'm free to shop like a student once more.

• Don't forget about mid-season sales

Having worked in Retail, it always astounds me when the shops would go into mid-season sale and all the customers would ask: 

"Oh, it's not the end of the season yet, is this a closing down sale?"

No, not at all. Pretty much all the shops do mid-season sales now. They are a relatively new thing but it has become quickly established. Mid-season sales are great because you can get all this season's clothes at next season's reduced prices! It was always pretty annoying buying jumpers at the end of Winter to put away for next year and vice versa with Summer dresses. Now you don't have to wait. Enjoy your clothes at half the price and at the right time of year. This is also a great time to go on holiday. I went to Rome in April and was able to take full advantage of mid-season sales to get a great new holiday wardrobe.

This skirt set me back only £16, instead of its
original value of £45

• Search for a price comparison

If there is something that you really want and the price doesn't seem to be dropping, it might be looking elsewhere. There's a possibility that you can get it elsewhere for a lot less. The first thing you need to do is get the style name. I really wanted a pair of Sebago deck shoes but the pair I wanted were £80 and I'd never tried them before so I wasn't sure how well they lasted or how well I would get on with them. I searched the name on Google and after a small amount of trawling, I discovered a website called AllSole where they stocked exactly the same shoes but I paid only £55 because they had been put into a promotion. AllSole no longer stock Sebagos, unfortunately, but they do stock many other popular shoe brands such as Hunter, Ted Baker, FitFlop and Vivienne Westwood. They offer great reductions online and often have extra promotions to take a little bit more money off so it's worth having a look. I was even able to get a second pair of Sebagos from this website for just £20 because I bought them at the end of the season with an extra discount.

Another tip is to watch out for companies that are selling other brands. Sometimes they will stick a bit of extra money on to the price to make a better profit margin. A lot of Urban Outfitters homeware is originally from a company called Sass & Belle. Urban Outfitters sometimes charge up to twice as much for items that are sold on the Sass & Belle website, I got these two cushions for £12 and £15 respectively instead of £25ea which was the Urban Outfitters price.

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