Is that discount real? Four checks before you buy

A crossed-out number next to a lower one is a claim, not a fact. Four quick checks catch most of the fiction, and none of them takes longer than a minute.

1. 01Check the recent lineCompare the offer to what the product has actually cost over the last three months, not to the reference price printed beside it.
2. 02Check the variantColour, size and capacity are often priced separately. The discount may belong to a variant you do not want.
3. 03Check a second storeIf one shop is thirty per cent off and three others are not, look harder at the reference price rather than celebrating.

The fourth check: the reference price itself

Many “was” prices are recommended retail prices that nobody has charged for years. When the reference number never appears in the product's real history, the percentage next to it is arithmetic rather than a saving.

Some markets now regulate this — a displayed previous price often has to be the lowest price of the preceding thirty days — but enforcement varies and marketplace sellers slip through. A recorded history is still the only reliable check.

Signals that a discount is genuine

• The price sits at or below the product's own three-month median rather than beside an inflated reference.
• The same product moved at other retailers in the same week, which suggests a real market change.
• The reduction survives more than a weekend, which usually means stock is being cleared rather than a badge being rotated.

A genuine discount looks the same from every angle: lower than recent history, lower than rival stores, on the exact variant you want.

Where fake discounts concentrate

Permanent-sale retailers — furniture, marketplace fashion, some large home stores — run event pricing so continuously that the badge carries no information at all. Electronics chains are usually more honest with the reference price, but they move it around launch windows.

Washing machine€549

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