The sentiment embodied in the headline should not come as too much of a surprise. Still, it's worth taking stock of this trend. The big retail winners last quarter, according to the Washington Post, were BJ's Wholesale Club, Fred's, and Wal-Mart. In fact, late last week, Wal-Mart upped its third-quarter projections because its sales and store traffic were higher than they had expected.

So how can this help you? How can you harness the favorable-to-discounting climate without discounting yourself out of business? A recent New York Times article may hold the key.

The piece explores retailers such as OfficeMax and Staples and their creative discounting on back-to-school products. Instead of just generally cutting prices (though they do that too,) they cut them drastically--sometimes to the point where they are selling certain items at a loss--and creatively. A watercolor set for 50 cents. Index cards for 33 cents. Eight of those ubiquitous yellow No. 2 pencils will cost you one shiny penny.

So the point is not (just) to coax buyers with lower prices; it's to lower prices in an innovative way so that prices are also a kind of marketing in their own right. They may also be so low in some places as to persuade buyers to buy a little bit on other items. Toy around. Be a little inventive. Who knows--if you lower prices enough, you just may raise your revenues.