People think that anyone can find a discount when they shop. Most people will laugh at that statement. But break it down into the parts, and you realize that there are skills involved here. But in truth, some people are simply better shoppers than other people. I think this is often overlooked by people who do not study consumer behavior very closely. There are entire branches of study devoted to how people shop that the marketers use to design their campaigns.
So what is the profile of the discount shopper? There are several factors that people who are good shoppers will exhibit. A big one is patience. Shoppers who are impatient are not particularly good at finding bargains. The thing about finding a good bargain is that you need a bit of timing. Deals dont just happen all the time, you need to be at the store when a sale is running. This requires some planning and research to figure out where the best deals are going to be. The high quality shopper is planner and gets this information ahead of time.
Good discount shoppers also know the places to find this great deal info. While similar, this is a different capability. This skill involves doing detective work to find the best sources for information about the best deals. So they essentially have the detective skills and the discipline to follow through and go to the sale. In summary, a discount shopper is not someone who just happens on a sale and saves tons of money. If you feel you are not saving enough money when you shop, perhaps you need to examine both your ability to find the sources where deals are published as well as you discipline to only buy when sales are running. If you can do these two things Im sure you will save a bunch of money while shopping.