How to Tell a Real Discount From a Staged One

A discount is only a discount against a price somebody actually paid. That is not a consumer-advocacy opinion — it is close to the literal wording of what regulators on both sides of the border require of a “was” price, and it is the standard the crossed-out number beside a sale price frequently fails.

What a “was” price is supposed to mean

The FTC’s Guides Against Deceptive Pricing set out the principle plainly. A former price is only a legitimate comparison if the item was openly and actively offered at it, for a reasonably substantial period, in the recent regular course of business.

A price set briefly, or set in order to be struck through, does not qualify.

Canada’s Competition Act, which the Competition Bureau enforces, applies the same idea through its ordinary selling price provisions in section 74.01. A seller can meet it 2 ways: either a substantial volume of the item was sold at that price, or it was offered in good faith at that price for a substantial period.

Both frameworks are asking the same question. Did anyone actually pay this?

Why that matters at the till

The reference price is supplied by the seller, and nothing on the page distinguishes a genuine former price from one typed in that morning. The two render identically.

The FTC’s own illustration shows how cheap the trick is. A retailer whose regular price for a pen is $7.50 lists it at $10 for a few days, sells almost none, then advertises “Were $10, Now Only $7.50”. The guide calls that a false bargain, and the listing would look exactly like a real one.

So the crossed-out number is not evidence. It is a claim about history, presented in the visual language of a fact, at the exact moment you are least inclined to check it.

The check that actually works

An item’s own recent price history is the one reference you can verify independently.

Look up what the item has been listed at over the previous 3 months, take a rough median, and compare the sale price against that — not against the number beside it. Price-history browser extensions and price-tracking sites will show you the line.

Two things fall out of doing that. A price that rose shortly before a sale event is doing promotional work rather than describing history. And a “discount” that lands within the band the price normally wanders through is not a discount at all. The FTC makes the same point about size: an item “Reduced to $9.99” from $10 misleads, because the buyer expects more than a nominal cut.

Post-season beats manufactured season

Where a genuine discount comes from is worth understanding, because it tells you when to expect one.

A clearance discount exists because a retailer needs the shelf space and the cash. Winter stock in January and summer stock in July are being cleared for a reason that has nothing to do with marketing, and the retailer’s motive is structural rather than promotional.

A sale event works the other way around. The date creates the demand, and the discount is the cost of the attention.

That does not make such discounts fake; plenty of genuine cuts land on a sale weekend. But the pressure to make the signage look dramatic is highest exactly when the discount is most heavily advertised.

Buying a category in the season it is being worn is reliably the most expensive way to buy it.

What to do with this

Check the item’s own price history rather than the crossed-out number. Treat a cut that stays inside the item’s usual price range as noise. Be more suspicious of a reference price when the discount is loudest, not less.

And where durability rather than price decides the value, the sale is close to beside the point. The construction is the argument — the case made in what makes a handbag worth the money and in what actually fails on an accessory.

Sources

1. Guides Against Deceptive Pricing, 16 CFR 233.1, Former price comparisons OfficialUS Federal Trade Commission, via eCFR · accessed 11 October 2026
2. Competition Act, section 74.01: ordinary price OfficialJustice Laws Website, Government of Canada · accessed 11 October 2026