THAILAND-STYLE BARGAINS

When you go shopping and see something reduced by 20% you would expect a bargain, right? Not in Thailand.
I've become a bit of an expert of the price of Hush Puppy shoes. For the past 15 years I've worn nothing else and I have four pairs at the moment. Recently I've been looking for another pair and have been keeping tabs on the prices. So recently when I saw a store offering a 20% discount I thought I should take a closer look.
In Thailand sales are pretty common, but what is different here is that the 'sale' price is more often than not higher than what you'd expect to pay normally.
Take this pair of shoes for example. I've seen them on sale elsewhere for around 2,400 baht. The 'original' price of the sale pair was 3,200 baht, so even with a 20% reduction I would still end up paying 2,560 baht.
A bargain? Not exactly.