The Clearance Markdown Calendar: Buy the Week Prices Actually Bottom Out

Most shoppers treat “clearance” as a single event: the sign goes up, they buy. But clearance isn’t a moment — it’s a schedule. Big-box and department-store chains run markdowns in scheduled cadence steps, usually every 1-3 weeks, cutting a fixed percentage each cycle until inventory clears or hits a floor. The first markdown you see is rarely the last one, and buying too early routinely means paying double what the same item costs three weeks later.

This is for anyone willing to trade a little patience for a lot of margin: furniture, patio sets, holiday decor, winter coats, mattresses, and seasonal sporting goods are the categories where the gap between “on sale” and “bottom of the cycle” is biggest — often 40-60 percentage points apart.

The tactic doesn’t require a coupon, a membership, or a card. It requires knowing the calendar and having somewhere else to be for a few weeks.

The core play

Retailers plan seasonal inventory to sell out by a target date, and when it doesn’t, they cut price on a schedule, not on impulse. The typical cadence at chains like Target, Kohl’s, Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Macy’s looks like this:

1. First markdown (~20-30% off): happens right as the season turns — end-of-season signage goes up while the item is still in season for a few more weeks.
2. Second markdown (~40-50% off): roughly 2-4 weeks later, once initial demand at the first price has been tested.
3. Third markdown (~50-70% off): another 2-4 weeks out, often moved to a dedicated clearance section or endcap.
4. Final clearance (~70-90% off): the last cut before remaining stock gets liquidated, transferred to an outlet channel, or returned to a vendor. This is the floor.

The gap between markdowns is where the money is. Buying at step one because the item is “on sale” is exactly the mistake this tactic avoids — you’re paying for impatience.

Step-by-step: running the calendar

1. Pick your category and know its season-end date. Patio furniture and grills clear starting late June through July (right after the 4th of July rush). Winter coats and boots clear starting late January into February. Holiday decor starts clearing December 26. Mattresses clear around the big mattress-industry sale weekends (Presidents Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day) as new models arrive. Back-to-school supplies clear in September.
2. Scout at the first markdown, but don’t buy. Note the item, size, and SKU. Take a photo of the price tag — many chains print a tiny future-markdown date or a barcode you can rescan later.
3. Rescan or recheck price weekly using the store’s app or self-checkout scanner. Target, Home Depot, and Kohl’s all let you scan a barcode in-app to see current price without a cashier. This is the single highest-leverage habit in the whole tactic.
4. Watch for the color-coded final-clearance tag. Many chains flag last-markdown stock with a distinct tag color or a price ending in specific digits (e.g., Home Depot’s clearance prices commonly end in $.06; Kohl’s uses a red “clearance” sticker distinct from standard “sale” tags). These aren’t official promises and change by region, but they’re a real pattern worth watching in your local stores.
5. Buy in the last cycle before it’s gone, not the theoretical rock-bottom. Waiting for the absolute floor risks the item selling out or being pulled entirely. Once you hit the third or fourth markdown and the size/color you want is still there, that’s usually the right moment — not the first sign of a price cut, and not a gamble on one more week.
6. For big-ticket items (patio sets, mattresses, grills), ask a manager directly. Associates often know the next scheduled markdown date, or can apply it early if the item is flagged for a move that week. It costs nothing to ask.

Where to apply this hardest

• Patio furniture and grills at Home Depot, Lowe’s, Target, and Walmart: first cut late June, floor by early-to-mid August.
• Winter coats and boots at Kohl’s, Macy’s, and Nordstrom: first cut late January, floor by mid-to-late February.
• Christmas and holiday decor: first cut December 26 (50% off is common day one), floor within 1-2 weeks at most chains since the category has zero shelf life after the season.
• Mattresses: don’t wait for clearance signage — target the week immediately after Presidents Day, Memorial Day, or Labor Day, when floor models and prior-year lines get discounted to make room for new arrivals.
• Halloween and back-to-school: compressed clearance windows (days, not weeks) since the next season’s inventory needs the shelf space immediately.

A worked example: patio set, $130 saved on a $220 item

A mid-range 4-piece patio conversation set at a big-box retailer, tracked through a real cadence:

• Late June: First markdown from $499 to $399 (20% off). Scout it, note the SKU, don’t buy.
• Mid-July: Second markdown to $299 (40% off original). Still in season for another month in most climates — worth another wait if the set isn’t urgently needed.
• Early August: Third markdown to $219 (56% off). Stock is thinning; this is the last cycle where full color/configuration options usually remain.
• Late August: Final clearance to $149 — but by now the specific set is sold out at the local store and only mismatched pieces remain online.

Buying at the early-August cut ($219) instead of the first markdown ($399) saves $180, and doing it instead of paying full price in-season ($499) saves $280 — while still getting the full, matched set. Chasing the theoretical final-clearance price would have meant settling for whatever was left, which is the real tradeoff in this tactic: floor pricing versus selection.

Where it breaks

• Popular sizes and colors sell out before the floor price hits. The markdown schedule is real, but so is demand — a size-large winter coat in a popular color may vanish at the second markdown while size-small sits until the fourth. Don’t wait on anything you need in a common size.
• Online clearance and in-store clearance run on different clocks. A store’s physical clearance rack can be a markdown cycle ahead of or behind the same SKU online, since inventory is managed by location. Check both.
• Regional stores clear at different paces. A store in a market with slower seasonal turnover may hold a first-markdown price for six weeks while a high-traffic store nearby is already at the floor. If you can, compare a couple of nearby locations via each retailer’s app.
• “Clearance” tags don’t guarantee another markdown is coming. Sometimes an item is pulled and returned to the vendor instead of getting a final cut — especially with small or unpopular SKUs the store wants off the floor fast.
• Return and price-adjustment policies rarely apply to clearance. Most retailers exclude clearance-tagged items from price-match and price-adjustment guarantees, and return windows are often shortened or waived (“final sale”). Confirm before you buy if you might need to return it.

The bottom line

Seasonal clearance isn’t random — it’s a scheduled markdown ladder, and the chains running it (Target, Kohl’s, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Macy’s, and most big-box retailers) follow a fairly consistent 2-4-week cadence from first cut to floor. Scout early, track the price weekly with the store’s own app or scanner, and buy in the last cycle before your size or configuration disappears rather than chasing the absolute bottom. On seasonal big-ticket categories — patio furniture, mattresses, winter outerwear — that discipline routinely turns a 20-30% “sale” into a 50-60% real discount, which on a single furniture or mattress purchase can mean $150-300 saved for doing nothing but waiting and rechecking a barcode.