How good is that online deal? We’ll know from Jan 1For years, UK consumer group “Which?” has found that many Black Friday deals are not really bargains. A shop may say a product has been cut from £500 to £400, but the product may never have actually sold for £500. Last year, none of the deals checked by the group was the cheapest price that product had been sold for in the previous 12 months.You may have seen something similar during festive sales in India. A product you have been waiting to buy during a Diwali sale may suddenly become more expensive when the sale begins. The “discounted” price may even be the same as, or higher than, its earlier price.The good news is that this should change on e-commerce platforms in India from January 1. Under new rules, when a seller announces a discount, it will also have to show the product’s “prior price”. This means the lowest price at which the product was sold on that platform during the 30 days before the discount was announced.This gives shoppers a simple way to check whether a discount is real. Without such a rule, it is easy to be fooled when big sale signs and huge discounts create excitement.
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Other major markets already have similar protections. In the US, the Federal Trade Commission says a “former price” used in an advertisement must be a genuine price. California says it must have been the normal market price within the previous 90 days. The European Union introduced a similar rule in 2022, using a 30-day price history. Its rule also applies to shops, not just online sellers.India should do the same. Online shoppers can use price-tracking websites to check whether a deal is genuine. But if a shop puts a “60% off” sign on a shirt, there is no easy way to know whether it was really sold at the higher price before. A discount should be a real saving, not just a clever trick.
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