Price comparison rules
How to stay within the law when you make price comparisons for your products or services and avoid giving misleading pricing information.
Consumer protection regulations ban traders from giving false or misleading pricing information that could make a consumer buy something they might not otherwise have bought. The regulations ban:
- false or misleading information about the way a price is worked out
- misleading omissions from pricing details - such as extra delivery charges on top of the advertised price
If you're going to make any form of price comparison for your products or services, you should be able to:
- justify the comparison
- show that any claim you make is accurate and valid - and in particular that any price advantage you claim for your products is real
When you make any price comparisons, it's important to:
- compare like with like
- make sure the basis of the price comparison is reasonable in terms of time - it's advisable to make a new lower price available for a shorter period than a previous higher price you offered
- explain the price comparison clearly and unambiguously so that consumers can easily identify the previous higher price and the new lower price
- make it clear what sort of price the higher price is - for example any comparison that uses the words 'normal price' should also say what the normal price is
- write out descriptions of price comparisons in full - except for the abbreviations 'RRP' - recommended retail price - and 'man rec price' which you can use
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