Advertised as “the wildest sale of the year” – hidden advance price is the same – E24

Tights.no runs two initial prices in its advertising campaign. The lowest is the current offer. – It can be quickly misleading, says the Norwegian Consumer Protection Authority.

“The wildest sale of the year,” says Tights.no online store these days.

Among the offers, you can find a pair of white running shoes at a recommended price of NOK 499. Now it has been reduced to NOK 299, as the price shows.

If you scroll past the product review on Thursday morning and click “Show description and reviews,” you can find gray text in 7.5 point size at the bottom of the page called “Lowest price in last 30 days: NOK 299.”

Netthandelsgruppen, which runs Tights.no, moved this text up after being contacted by E24 on Thursday. Find out what the company’s response is on this matter.

Minimum price must be stated before bidding

Norwegian law was changed on October 1 this year, As a result of the EU modernization directives.

The rules now state that traders must provide information about the initial price of the item. This is defined as the lowest price for at least 30 days before the start of marketing.

Deputy Director of the Norwegian Consumer Protection Authority Marit Evensen explains that they cannot deal with specific cases in the media. Her comments are therefore on a general basis.

But still: If a trader is marketing a markdown, they should mention the lowest price the item has reached in the last 30 days, Evensen points out.

– The discount must be calculated based on this price. We recommend giving the advance price only as a reference price, and it can quickly become misleading if the advance price is not clearly stated or if multiple prices are used in marketing, Evensen wrote in an email to E24.

– If the previous price and the current price are the same, there is no saving in the real price, she says.

The advance price cannot be an “advance price” that refers to an earlier time in the same price campaign, according to the Norwegian Consumer Protection Agency.

– The price offered must be the lowest price used by the trader in the last 30 days before the start of the sale.

I believe the initial price is indicative

But on Tights.no, the current bid price is listed as “Lowest price in the last 30 days”, in small gray text.

However, Netthandelsgruppen, which operates Tights.no, says the guide price is the lowest advance price that can be used.

After E24 first contacted Netthandelsgruppen on Thursday, the company during the afternoon moved the text from the bottom of the product pages to the bottom of the product description.

– It is true that we have moved the location of price information for the last 30 days to the top of the page. This was done after your feedback that you could not find it, and we thought the same might apply to others, wrote head of e-commerce Vadim Bjarkum in an email.

– Developing price information is about the technical implementation of information that is developed very quickly to ensure that we follow legislation.

The text you can find at the bottom is actually the current offer price, Bjarcom confirms.

E24 asked Netthandelsgruppen several questions about this matter via email.

-Does Netthandelsgruppen believe that when price information regulations require traders to provide information on the lowest price in the last 30 days, the current bid price also applies if it is the lowest?

Bjarkum did not answer this question directly.

– Is the guide price actually the lowest price the product reached in the last 30 days before the item was marked down in connection with Black Week? And if so: why is the little gray text included with the current bid price in the first place?

– It is also true that we added this functionality in addition to the guide price (advance price) to ensure as much transparency as possible towards our customers, so that they can easily evaluate whether this is the best offer for a particular item in the last 30 days.

– The indicative price for campaign products is also the lowest advance price before the start of the campaign period.

He complained in 2016

Tights.no has previously been in the spotlight by the Norwegian Consumer Protection Authority, most recently last year.

E24 was then given access to four different issues relating to the online store – from 2016, 2020 and 2021.

The first came as a result of XXL suing them for using what they believed were not real upfront prices.

The second reason was due to a complaint from a consumer indicating that there was no 30 percent discount on the entire store, as the online store claimed on Facebook.

The third came after Black Week 2020, when a consumer noted that the advertised item was “always on sale.”

In the spring of 2021, the Norwegian Consumer Protection Authority conducted its own investigation, which resulted in the fourth investigation. The Inspectorate found several examples of the products on offer being offered at a lower price than the pre-market price in the period leading up to the sale.

The online retail group admitted that errors had occurred and explained this by pointing out, among other things, that sales volumes increased last year, the product range increased, and that prices varied more than usual during the Corona pandemic. The Norwegian Consumer Protection Authority did not like the answer:

“If the company does not have sufficient control to be able to ensure that pre-market prices are real, the company should instead refrain from selling.”