NEW YORK, NY May 12, 2008 —Many people dread Monday morning and the return to the drudgery of work. But at one discount clothing store in downtown Manhattan, it’s the most eagerly anticipated time of the week. WNYC’s Ilya Marritz takes a look at the art and science of pricing on a shopping excursion.

Marcus Valmar makes a ritual of it. VALMAR: When a shipment comes in, yeah, we come in and get some stuff, you know. It beats better than going to you know Macy's, and stuff like that. REPORTER: Sean Austin says you have to be an early bird. AUSTIN: There's like noon people and afternoon people. I'm like one of the early people. You have to be or most of the good stuff is gonna be gone. REPORTER: Welcome to Hidden Treasures, a downtown rock-bottom clothing discounter. The pink awning is in tatters. There is no changing room, and hardly a clothes hanger in sight. Just 20 plywood bins, piled high with dresses, blouses, work shirts and trousers. Don’t even think about trying to find the section for your size. Catherine Mendy rules this roost from her barstool by the cash register. MENDY: That's why it's called Hidden Treasures, you have to dig for it and then you get the treasure you want. REPORTER: Mendy came to America from Gambia in West Africa. She's been working here two years. She says Hidden Treasures gets most of its stock from two major department stores, she doesn't want to say which ones. Now physically, Hidden Treasures is located on a small street a few blocks from the site of the former World Trade Center. But we can also imagine the store as one point on the trajectory of the price of a pair of jeans. It looks roughly like an arc, with a few peaks. Obviously by the time the jeans get to hidden treasures, it’s past the highest peak. Now hold onto that image as we trace the price of a pair of jeans from the moment they leave the factory. CAPON: The manufacturer in...Cambodia gets paid his or her $10. REPORTER: That's Professor Noel Capon, he teaches pricing at Columbia Business School. Now let's continue up the arc, past exchange rates and tariffs, and give a nod to the wholesalers, until we arrive at the retailer. CAPON: And then Bloomingdale's has bought it for some amount, and they put a price on it of two hundred dollars. REPORTER: Or more. A nice pair of jeans can cost you more than $300 these days. And now we’re at the peak price for this pair of jeans. But there’s a problem: Uh....I dunno, what do you think? They're nice, they're just not really ME. The jeans are not moving, and the department store is getting worried. CAPON: It cannot afford to have any product just sitting around on the shelves for a long time. So it probably has some sort of decision rule that after this product has been on shelves three weeks or four weeks, if it product hasn't sold... REPORTER: Hey, it's New York. There's a guy with a van, he’ll take care of that. Problem solved. Or maybe just problem shrunk, because this trajectory of the price of a pair of jeans is headed down, very fast. The man with the van is paying a lot less than full price, and the department store is really just cutting its losses. And now the van with the unwanted jeans speeds off downtown. And just before turning onto Warren Street, there's little speed bump. That's where the middleman with the van gets his markup on the clothes, before handing it off to the gang at Hidden Treasures. And now we're back at the bins, where Sean Austin, who should be in computer class, is instead indulging his inner hunter-gatherer. AUSTIN: I got a nice True Religion jeans, they were like $319 at Bloomingdale’s. I got ‘em for like $50, so you can't really beat that. REPORTER: But the downward trajectory doesn’t necessarily end here. Because even though Sean Austin takes the jeans (and Hidden Treasures makes their money), there are some men’s shirts from the same shipment that just aren't selling. But Catherine Mendy can go low. MENDY: So the lowest we'll go after one week or maybe two weeks is just $2.99, $3 or just $4.99, $5 a shirt. REPORTER: And if no one walks through the doors, and declares a men's shirt hidden treasure for the paltry price of $3.99, as outrageously cheap as that is? MENDY: Mm hm. After here we already packed it to go, to Gambia straight. REPORTER: Catherine Mendy knows a bulk exporter to her native country, Gambia. And she's pretty sure he'll be able to find buyers there. For WNYC, I'm Ilya Marritz.