Something I have noticed in the last year or so is businesses are discounting more and more,  offering free shipping on smaller orders and regular sales.  

As a small business we have always priced for good value and to cover our costs and there isn't much wiggle room to discount heavily or often.  I assume that this is because the economy has been struggling and people and therefore businesses are struggling so they feel the need to discount to attract customers and keep the money coming in.  What I have been wondering is how do you as customers feel about it?  Do you love a sale or a discount or do you start to feel a little cynical if it happens a lot?  

I am sure there are many businesses that price to factor this in but we are not one of them and I am also sure that a lot of small businesses end up making less money on products because of it.  Do you think this is a short term trend while the economy is struggling or a shift towards companies having to compete more and more with discounting and devalue their products or increase prices to allow a margin for discounts?   We do often run our super popular ends sales and honestly the reason we don't offer the ends as a regular product is because we need to get someone in to help put them together so we wait until we have a load made up and you all seem to love that.

I would absolutely love your feedback on this topic if you have 5 minutes to spare