What a “was £299” price actually has to mean
Almost every sale price in Britain is shown next to a higher number with a line through it. That higher number is called a reference price, and it is doing a lot of work: it is the entire reason the offer looks good.
So it is worth knowing what a retailer actually has to be able to prove about it.
There is no longer a “28-day rule”
A lot of shoppers still believe a product must have been sold at the higher price for 28 days. That rule came from older guidance and no longer exists in that form. It has been replaced by something less mechanical but arguably stricter: the comparison has to be genuine and not misleading.
Current UK guidance for traders sets out what that means in practice. A retailer using a was/now comparison should be able to show things like:
- The higher price was the last price charged before the promotion started, with no other discounts in between.
- The reference price is recent — broadly, charged within the last couple of months.
- The product was on sale at that price for at least as long as the discount period runs.
- There is evidence of real sales at the higher price, or that it was at least a realistic selling price.
The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 underpins this, and it turns on a useful principle: a price presentation can break the rules even when every number in it is factually accurate, if the overall impression misleads.
The four patterns worth being suspicious of
| What you see | Why it deserves a second look |
|---|---|
| A very round reference price (“was £500, now £299”) | Real prices are rarely that tidy. It may be a list price nobody ever paid. |
| The same product permanently “on sale” | If it is always reduced, the higher price was never really the price. |
| “RRP” rather than “was” | RRP is what the manufacturer suggests, not what anyone charged. It is a much weaker claim. |
| A discount that appears the moment you arrive from a comparison site | Worth checking the same product in a fresh window. |
What Arbi does about it
When Arbi reads a product page and the shop is showing a previous price, it shows you that previous price — and it shows it as the retailer's own claim, not as Arbi's. Arbi does not verify that a was-price was ever genuinely charged, because it cannot: only the retailer holds that record. What Arbi can do is put the actual prices from several shops side by side, which is a far more reliable guide than any percentage.