Ross Shopping Hacks

I found these Ross shopping tips on a site called The Krazy Coupon Lady. 

Sorry for the crazy fonts, but I copied and pasted from the website and for some reason can't fix it.

1. Ross resellers make a full-time job (and salary) out of hunting sales and reselling online.

2. The best deals are often those without a comparable value price.   Given that most Ross prices are about half the comparable value price, many of the best deals in the store are those that don’t automatically calculate that comparable value.

3. Comparable values frequently underreport actual retail price.  Ross buys inventory in batches — like 5000 units of men’s Nike cotton tees. Ross has a few tiers of pricing for men’s Nike cotton tees, and the pricing team makes a best-guess assumption without ever looking up the SKU to see what the actual retail price of the item is.

The good news? When Ross is wrong, they’re usually undervaluing the comparable value price, especially on apparel. 

4. Markdowns happen every Monday. Markdowns happen in tiny increments of 10-20%.

Every Sunday, Ross store managers receive the weekly markdown list from headquarters. Markdown departments will vary from one week to another but are generally the same nationwide. Most departments are marked down about once per month.

5. 80% of Ross’ inventory is closeout merchandise: factory overrun or late shipments. When a vendor over-manufactures, runs late on shipment and doesn’t make it to big box stores in time to sell, or when an item from a department store didn’t sell for one reason or another, opportunistic buyers like Ross swoop in and buy the inventory at a huge discount.

6. All irregular (defective) items are marked.

7. Identical items arriving in different shipments get separate SKUs, which means unique markdowns.

If there are multiple items on a shelf, always check each one before placing any item in your cart to make sure you’re getting the lowest price.

If the SKU numbers match (SKU is the twelve digit number beginning with 400), Ross will sell you both items at the clearance price. If SKUs match, it would mean the items were in the same shipment and one item just missed its markdown. But, in this case, the two sets have different SKUs, and Ross will not sell both sets of bottles for the clearance price.

8. Some of the best buys at Ross are department store beauty brands: Peter Thomas Roth, Clinique, Philosophy.

9. One of the best items you can always find at Ross is Nike Air Jordans.

10. Women’s athletic wear is the most popular apparel category in the store.

11. Clearance sections only exist in apparel departments. Elsewhere, clearance is mixed in with regular inventory.

12. The lowest clearance price you’ll ever find is $0.49.

13. Employee discount is 20% off every day and twice per year 40% off everything but jewelry and electronics.

14. Seniors over 55 save 10% on Tuesdays.