Blunting misleading online 'sales' offers should be a priority for regulators in 2025
In many ways, shopping has never been easier. In the past, we’d have to traipse down busy high streets, slaloming through crowded stores, just to pick up Christmas presents for our loved ones.
Now? Most of it can be done in the comfort of our own homes, at the touch of a button.
But this convenience has brought its own complications. The obstacle course remains, but has just moved online. In recent months, Which? research has identified a range of pricing practices deployed by businesses to entice customers in - without the deal being quite as generous as first thought.
When our researchers have dug into this issue, more often than not we’ve found things that have concerned us. Let’s take a look at some examples.
Black Friday - previously a one-day sale, which has now morphed into an event stretching for several weeks - seeks to draw customers in with the prospect of juicy deals. The proximity to Christmas appeals to the more organised shopper: spend then and you can put your feet up in December.
But each year, we find that most so-called ‘sales’ are nothing of the sort. This Black Friday, our researchers found that, despite the hype, nine in 10 ‘deals’ surveyed were cheaper or the same price at other times of the year. And while retailers rarely say that their prices during Black Friday are their very best, the fanfare and marketing around them means shoppers would be forgiven for thinking they are.
So, having avoided buying that Smart 4K TV that you didn’t need and was cheaper in July anyway, you spot that some Black Friday deals, such as holidays, might be worth the hype. Bookings for winter holidays are at record levels, according to online travel agent On the Beach. So you wouldn’t be alone in wanting a well-earned holiday for some winter sun.
But there may be some issues when you are looking for good deals on accommodation. Again: the idea is easier than the reality. Last month, we found that hotel rooms from some of the most well-known brands, such as Accor (which owns Mercure hotels) and Hilton, have been advertised at unrealistically low rates in a bid to lure customers in.
When our researchers checked whether rooms on offer at a range of Hilton hotels, such as the Grand Hotel des Sablettes Plage on the French Riviera, were really available for the ‘from £133’ price shown, the cheapest room was actually more likely to be £180.
While this sale had been running for three months, meaning some of those £133 rooms may have been sold, it’s concerning to continue seeing these ads, giving other customers false hope. Neither Hilton or Accor responded to our requests for comment.
The sharp pricing practices don’t end there. Earlier this year, hundreds of thousands of Oasis fans braved ticketing websites in a bid to see the band’s long-awaited reunion. What should have been an outpouring of Britpop nostalgia turned out to be a deluge of frustration. Several fans were shown one price for tickets, only to have that price taken away at the last second and replaced with a far higher, and unexpected, price.
This isn’t an exhaustive list of examples. But the weight of incidents should give regulators pause for thought on whether they’re doing enough to crack down on these practices.
For example, the Advertising Standards Authority can - and does - regularly uphold complaints about the marketing of prices. But their direct remit only extends to getting those ads taken down - which often only happens several months after the event, by which time a whole host of consumers have presumably already fallen for the so-called deal.
Trading Standards, part of local authority services and responsible for enforcing compliance with consumer protection laws, do have stronger powers. New laws will soon mean that they will be able to take businesses to court so they can be fined for breaking consumer law, but after years of funding squeezes TS departments are overstretched and too rarely take enforcement action against rogue businesses.
The Competition and Markets Authority can take action where more strategic and market-wide issues are concerned and will have stronger powers to take action against breaches to consumer law from April.
We think consumers deserve better. In 2025, my new year’s resolution is to encourage regulators to get much tougher with businesses that lure us in and then rip us off.