The endless parade of "mega sales" in the Philippines has become a digital circus of deception. I'm tired of the 9.9, 10.10, 11.11, and 12.12 sales. I feel like they're all just fake.
I like to put things in my cart just to keep an eye on them, and then I watch as the price goes up, down, and all around as some algorithm tries to get you to buy. I was tracking a pair of wireless earbuds that I had my eye on— then a few days before the 10.10 sale the price jumped up ₱2,000 so that they could slash of ₱2,500 and mark it as "70% OFF!"
So I was thinking about it- how would I find real sales in this kind of buying landscape?
Reading Supply-Chain Pressures
There are legit product cycles that are pretty predictable. Things like tech and phones: when new models launch, stores have pressure to clear inventory for new stock.
That pressure comes from a few places: older SKUs start to depreciate the minute a successor is announced, brands offer rebates or demand sell-through before end-of-quarter targets, and retailers need warehouse space and cash to bring in holiday inventory.
Holding aging stock also creates risk—returns rise, warranties run out, and comparison shoppers gravitate to the newer model—so the carrying cost of keeping last-gen units gets higher each week.
Put those together and you get real, time-bound markdowns tied to operational needs rather than hype.
Companies invest heavily in controlling their supply chains to minimize these exact pressures (as I explored in Supply Chain Is King), but even the best-run operations face predictable inventory stress.
For electronics specifically, the sweet spot often falls between September and mid-October, when back-to-school and launch cycles overlap with end-of-quarter targets and pre-holiday stocking, pushing retailers to clear existing inventory.
So if you can read those supply-chain pressures—launch timing, quarter ends, vendor incentives, and storage constraints—you can tell when a sale is legit versus just algorithmic price theater.
Inventory Stress
So a concept I'm playing around with is inventory stress.
This is when it becomes costly to continue carrying an item.
The two honest reasons I can think of for inventory stress are obsolescence and perishability. When a new model lands, last year's units get cheaper because they need to go. Similar to what we talked about above.
Perishability is pretty obvious too. When a product ages—whether it's mangoes in peak season or earbuds with batteries that have been sitting—the clock itself pushes the price down. Watch model cycles and manufacture dates. If multiple authorized sellers cut prices at once, or you see near-expiry flags and bundles thrown in, that's real inventory stress.
The Earbuds That Taught Me a Lesson
This really is just my amateur take, and it comes from getting burned. Those earbuds were the trigger. I watched the price jump before 10.10, saw the big "70% OFF," and bought. The box looked fine, but the buds wouldn't hold a charge. The case felt like a dead flashlight. After a bit of troubleshooting, it clicked: old inventory with lithium batteries that had been sitting drained too long.
That's when I started paying attention to the boring stuff—manufacture dates on the box, how many authorized sellers are cutting price at once, and whether the listing is all hype and no specs. The return was a hassle, and by the time I got a partial refund, I realized the "sale" wasn't a deal; it was a dump.
So yeah, amateur thinking. But it's me connecting my small mistake to a bigger pattern: perishability isn't just mangoes. It's batteries, plastics, firmware. If the clock is pushing a product down, that discount might actually be legit.
The Bottom Line
Bottom line: real sales show up when there's genuine pressure to unload inventory—even below cost. Learn to read that pressure and ignore the rest.
Watch incentives, not banners. When inventory needs to move, prices turn honest; when it's targets or customer grabs, it's just noise.
Real deals come from inventory stress. Everything else—quarter-end pushes, loss-leading, hype—is just price theater.