Fake discounts: how to check a price before you buy

A struck-through price, a percentage in red, a countdown ticking away. Everything says buy now. The catch is that a struck-through price doesn't have to have been charged for long — and a discount calculated from a fictitious price isn't a discount.

This article breaks down the most common tricks, what the rules actually require, and the fastest way to check before you pay. Worth reading before November rather than after.

Four legal and effective techniques

1. The inflated reference price. The struck-through price is one that was charged briefly — sometimes for a single day, sometimes by a single seller. The advertised discount is mathematically accurate and commercially fictitious.
2. The fake countdown. A timer that resets on every visit, or restarts once it runs out. Its job is to stop you comparing, not to inform you.
3. The “only 3 left” message. It stays on the page for weeks. Sometimes the number isn't linked to any real inventory.
4. The permanent sale. A product shown on promotion all year round: that's no longer a promotion, it's the price.

None of these four techniques requires an outright lie. All of them aim for the same thing: creating urgency that short-circuits comparison.

What the rules say about reference prices

In the European Union, since the so-called Omnibus directive was transposed into national law, any announced price reduction must show the lowest price charged during the 30 days before the promotion. It's real progress: it rules out raising the price the day before to announce a discount the day after. Rules elsewhere differ, and are often looser.

Two limits remain. The rule covers thirty days, which still allows an earlier price rise. And enforcement varies between platforms, especially on marketplaces where several sellers offer the same item.

How to read a price history chart

Read a price history by looking at three zones, in this order:

• The plateau. The level where the price spends most of its time. That's the product's real price.
• The recent spike. A rise in the weeks before a big sales event deserves attention: it's the price that will serve as the reference for the discount.
• The all-time low. The lowest point ever reached. It shows how far the seller is willing to go, and so whether today's offer is genuinely good.

A perfectly flat line for three months, then a “−40%” banner in the fourth, tells you everything you need to know.

The classic pre-Black Friday pattern

The pattern repeats every year on a share of products: the price climbs gradually from late October to mid-November, then “drops” on the day itself, back to roughly its September level.

The practical consequence matters: a price tracker only helps if you installed it before the price went up. Starting to watch a product on the morning of Black Friday shows nothing, because there's no earlier history.

The right time to set up tracking is therefore early October, on the handful of products you're genuinely considering.

Checking in three seconds

Three habits, from fastest to most reliable:

1. Compare the price at two other retailers. If the gap is small, the “discount” isn't one.
2. Look at the product's price history when it's available. It's the only proof of what happened before.
3. Set an alert at the price you're happy to pay instead of buying in a rush. If the product drops to that level, you're notified; if not, you've lost nothing.

That's what Nexily Price does: the chart appears on the product page, and the alert triggers on a real drop, not on a banner.

Buy now or wait?

Waiting has a cost: the time spent watching, and sometimes the product selling out. Three situations call for different answers.

And for everyday products, where there's neither a promotion nor a price history, the useful number is elsewhere: it's the unit price.

Frequently asked questions