How to tell a fake discount from a real one

A struck-through price is a claim, not a fact. It only means something if the item genuinely sold at that number recently — and a surprising share of the time it did not. Four checks will tell you which you are looking at, and none takes more than a minute.

1. Is the “was” price the same as the price?

It sounds absurd, and it is commoner than you would think. Feeds carry a list price and a sale price, and where a retailer fills both with the same number, anything rendering them prints a line through a figure that never moved. When we imported this catalogue, 110 products arrived that way. We stopped showing a former price where it matches the current one, but plenty of sites do not — so if the two numbers look identical, they probably are.

2. Was it ever sold at that price?

The honest version of a “was” price is the price the item actually sold at for a reasonable stretch before the reduction. The dishonest version is a recommended retail price nobody has charged in two years, or a figure held for a fortnight specifically so it can be struck through.

Price history tools settle this in seconds on the large marketplaces. On smaller shops, searching the exact product name will usually turn up the same item elsewhere and give you a second opinion on what it is worth.

3. Is the percentage doing work the cash figure will not?

“Up to 70% off” is a statement about the single best line in the sale, and often about one size of one colour. The cash saving on the thing you actually want is the only number that matters. Convert every percentage you are shown into money before comparing anything.

4. Does the total still look right at the payment step?

Delivery is where a saving quietly leaves. A code that takes $20 off goods and a shop that charges $15 for postage below a threshold you have just dropped under is a net saving of $5 — and the basket page will not tell you, because postage appears later.

Check the figure you will be charged, not the figure in the basket. It is the single most common way a real discount turns into a small one.

What a genuine reduction looks like

A specific item, a specific price, and a former price that a search confirms was really being charged. On products we show the former price only where the retailer's own feed reports one that differs from what they are charging now — where it does not, there is no line through anything, because a saving nobody offered is not worth printing.

The same applies to the figure on a coupon card: where an offer names no discount, the card shows none rather than an invented one.