Why do deals die at the end of July?

August 3, 2011 2:41 PM

Why is July 31 such a common expiration date?

It seems like a lot of coupons and special deals have a July 31st expiration date. Why at the end of the 7th month, rather than the 6th? Is it the fiscal year not matching up with the calendar year? What's up with that?

posted by attercoppe to Grab Bag (3 answers total)

Ending a fiscal year on July 31st is pretty common. The companies issuing the coupons probably don't want to deal with the extra accounting that would be involved in carrying the coupons between fiscal years.
posted by PhillC at 2:45 PM on August 3, 2011

Anecdotally, people head to the stores for "necessary" shopping in August for back-to-school stuff. There were several times during my childhood where we'd head to the store for school-related things, fist full of coupons, then look down at the July 31st expiration dates and hear my dad say, "son of a! those suckers did that on purpose!" But by that point we were already there with a full shopping cart, so bought the stuff anyway.
posted by phunniemee at 3:21 PM on August 3, 2011

I just checked and the following companies have a January fiscal year end (and thus July 31 is the end of Q2):

Wal Mart
Target
Safeway
Kroger
Macy's
JC Penney

Interestingly, Whole Foods and Costco have September and August fiscal years, respectively. Those strike me as chains where coupons aren't part of the marketing strategy.
posted by mullacc at 3:36 PM on August 3, 2011