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Week 39 · 21–27 September 2026 · By Maggi Ferguson

What September discounts, and when a sale price is a warning

The end-of-summer sales are on. A couple of the discounts are genuinely good. Two of them are the shop telling you something about the product, if you know how to listen.

Written on a Monday, a day later than usual — this one should have gone up on Sunday, and it did not. Last week we promised to look at what the shops are marking down as summer finishes, and at the two kinds of sale price that are really a warning. Here it is.

The honest summary first. Most September discounting is just stock clearance and it is fine: the shop needs the space and you get a lower price. But discounting also compresses a lot of information into one number, and in two categories that number is telling you something the product description is not.

As with the last few weeks, this is reasoning about materials and prices rather than trend reporting, so it does not borrow the authority of our trend pages. You will also notice that this site never shows a crossed-out "was" price on any product, anywhere. Section three explains why.

The genuine bargain: sunglasses

Sunglasses get sold as a summer category and discounted as one, and that is the shop's mistake rather than yours. The sun sits low from October to February, which puts it directly in your eyes on a morning commute, and glare off a wet road is worse than anything July produces. So a September markdown on a decent pair is one of the few seasonal discounts that is straightforwardly in your favour. Check two things the sale will not change: the UV400 rating, which should be on the listing, and the lens width against your own face — that is the measurement that decides whether they fit.

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Summer jewellery that does not know it is September

Shell, coral-toned and beachy pieces get marked down now because they look like summer in a product photograph. On a person they look like jewellery. A shell pendant against a black polo neck in November reads as a deliberate contrast, not as a holiday souvenir you forgot to take off. If you liked a piece in July, the September price is the same piece for less. The only honest exception is anything genuinely fragile — real shell chips and scratches — so buy it knowing it is a piece for occasions rather than daily wear.

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Warning one: the "was" price nobody can check

A crossed-out price is a claim, and it is usually one you have no way to verify. "Was $89, now $19" tells you what the seller would like you to believe the item used to cost, not what anyone actually paid for it, and on inexpensive jewellery in particular the higher number is often a figure it was never realistically sold at. The discount is doing the persuading so the product does not have to. This is why we do not show "was" prices on this site at all — we show the price, and the date we captured it, and nothing else. The useful habit is to cover the crossed-out number with your thumb and ask whether you would buy the thing at the price that is left.

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Warning two: leather at a price leather cannot be

This is the one worth learning, because it is printed on the label and almost everyone misreads it. Leather is graded, and the names are unhelpful: full grain is the top of the hide and the best, top grain is sanded and still good, and "genuine leather" — which sounds like a guarantee — is commonly used for lower-grade split leather. Below that is bonded leather, which is leather scraps bound together with polyurethane, and it is the material that peels in flakes after a year. A deeply discounted "leather" bag at a price that seems impossible usually is: it is bonded or split. Look for the grade on the listing. If it only says "genuine", assume the lower end.

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Read the returns line before the price

The biggest September trap is not a price at all. Clearance items are often final sale, and a final-sale accessory that does not fit is not sixty per cent off — it is a hundred per cent lost. This matters most for anything sized: a rigid cuff or bangle has to pass the widest part of your hand, which is measured around the knuckles rather than the wrist, and there is no forgiveness in a closed metal ring. Measure first. If the returns line says final sale and you have not measured, the discount is not a reason to buy.

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Next week: October, the month the good coats arrive, and the three accessories worth buying before the weather decides for you.