Can I Get a Little Love for DSW?

FACT:  I DO work in marketing.
FACT:  I DO NOT work in retail marketing, but nonetheless... I know how retail promotions work.

The formula is simple: Company A researches your buying patterns, send a weekly or monthly e-mail with a coupon to spark your interest, and then drives to you their website to BUY.

For example:
Store A is selling a pair of shoes for $50.
The same store is willing to give you $5 off a full price item and sell the shoes for $45 over the alternative (which is making zero dollars without the promotion).

BUT ... enter MissMarried with her fashionable superhero cape, web savvy shopping ability, and coupons and you have a girl that wrecks the formula!

Exhibit A: I received an e-mail promotion in my inbox this morning from DSW. And the pink little numbers in the top right corner caught my eye (except I wanted them in black), so I clicked through to DSW's website. I saw the shoes were listed for full price at $54.95, meaning that I could save $10 off a $49 purchase with the promotional code that they just e-mailed to me.

Running total (pre-shipping): $44.95:

Then I remembered I received an e-mail  from the Vice President of Customer Strategy & Engagement at DSW (yes, this person exists and she is on twitter- ask me if you want to know who she is) last night thanking me for a review that I submitted to the DSW website about a pair of shoes that I bought last month. The e-mail thanked me, and included another coupon code for $5 off a purchase of $5 or more.

Running total (pre-shipping): $39.95. Hmmm.... this keeps getting better.

Let's keep a good thing going, right? Since I am a very loyal DSW shopper, I happened to have two, yes two, rewards certificates based on past purchases. The reward certificates were for $20 and $10 respectively, so I typed those little babies into the discount code box and my total kept going in the right direction-- down, down, down.

Running total (pre-shipping): $19.95 (with my 1st certificate)
Running total (pre-shipping): $9.95 (with my 2nd certificate)

And now for the killer that often stops me dead in my tracks with online shopping: shipping. I visited the DSW website, and saw that they had a free NEXT DAY shipping offer for Premier rewards members (and that's me!)

 

Bringing my running total for these new (and totally needed, errr... well deserved) shoes to.... $9.95 with shipping! I could not pass these up. I immediately hit submit, changed the default shipping address to my office (because MrMarried would not be pleased if he knew I had bought another pair of black shoes), and began writing this post knowing that I got the deal of the day! 

 

 And just for further proof, here is my shopping cart. Yes, the total says $9.95.

What deals have you gotten lately?  I'd love to hear about them. Happy Shopping!

***Please note, to my knowledge, I have not violated any secret marketing plans of any company. I do not work for DSW or DSW.com, and found all of the coupon codes I referenced in this post on free, public websites including DSW.com and retailmenot.com. This blog post is simply to celebrate a good deal and not to share non-public information. Just trying to cover my bases with this disclaimer. It was not my intention to offend anyone.