*Hidden* Sales on Designer Duds

While browsing the Internet this morning from my mobile, I came across a pretty awesome handbag on the Kate Spade New York website which happened to be hugely discounted (40% off) on their Sale page. It's blend of neutrals – nude and black – complete with bow and polka-dot interior meant I had to check it out on a larger screen. 

The aforementioned pretty awesome handbag, top left

 Imagine my surprise when I landed on the homepage and saw this:

Do you see what I see? There is no link to their sale. It is completely omitted from their homepage. Here's the homepage from the mobile site to give you an idea of what I'm talking about (Sale at very bottom):

Kate Spade Homepage on mobile device

A quick Google search for "Kate Spade sale" brought me to the desired page, but it was still not quite right:

 Compare this to the mobile site:

Kate Spade Sale Page on mobile device

It's hard to see from this screenshot, but the items are not discounted on the regular Kate Spade site. You can see the URL as well as the giant SALE page heading. Even the path reads, "kate spade root/ sale/ JUST ADDED." The items, however, are not listed as on sale unlike the mobile site, where the full priced figures are crossed out and discounted prices are listed in red. I found the bag I saw on my phone and it wasn't discounted either!

This is a very, very strange–and obviously an unwanted bug from their side (or maybe they really do want people shopping from their mobile devices). This is an example of how businesses often create completely separate websites for mobile devices such as phones and tablets. These separate websites pull data from different sources, which means the customer receives different information based on their platform of choice.

This issue continues even after you add the item to the shopping bag:

Do you want to pay full price?

Or do you want to save 40%?

It's important to keep these details in mind as you start your holiday season. These are not small savings we are seeing here and sales such as these greatly impact our purchasing power.