What your price tags are telling you about getting the best deal

Monday, May 22, 2017
Cracking the price tag code to find out if you're getting the best deal.

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- How do you really know when a price has hit rock bottom? Should you buy it then or wait for the price to fall even further?

The numbers on a price tag are like a code that needs to be cracked.

Eyewitness News Consumer Reporter Patricia Lopez went store to store to find the details in the numbers, colors and codes some of your favorite stores use to identify the deals.

At Home Depot, yellow stickers indicate a clearance item. The .00 and .06 mean the item is marked down. The 6 means six weeks left until another markdown.

The "BB" at Kohl's means it's a bonus buy. "BGH" means buy one item, get one half off, and an "S" means the item will be on sale for one to two weeks. If you see a square on a tag, that means it is the lowest price of the season and won't drop again until it goes on clearance.

PHOTOS: What your price tags tell you about saving money

Number in upper right corner of Target price tags show you the percentage off.

At JCPenney, price tags are pretty easy to decode. Tags ending with .00 are full price, .99 is a clearance price, .97 is a clearance item that has been reduced even more and will continue to drop every two weeks until it's gone.

Color coding also makes Target easy to decipher. Red tags are clearance items. If you look in the upper right hand corner of the tag you will see 30, 50, 75 or even 90. That is the percentage off for that item. If a price ends in 8, then you know it was marked down but if it ends in a 4, that indicates the item is on clearance and is dropped to the lowest price.

The blog rather-be-shopping.com offers great information on how to crack the codes at other stores like American Eagle Outfitters and more.

And if you want to always make sure you're getting the best deal, here are some money-saving secrets every Kohl's shopper needs to know:.

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