A crossed-out price can now land you a fine of up to 10% of your global turnover. Experts explain how to keep your Black Friday discounts lawful.
- There’s no fixed 28-day rule for “was” prices, but you need to prove customers could realistically have bought at that price, recently and for a meaningful stretch.
- Inflated prices, “up to” headlines and countdown timers that reset are the mistakes most likely to land you in trouble.
- The CMA can fine you directly, so export your price history and keep dated screenshots before your sales start.
Black Friday and its internet counterpart, Cyber Monday, are less than three weeks away, and many small businesses are already cutting prices in store and online to get ahead of the rush.
The temptation to shout about a big discount is hard to resist. Yet, a crossed-out price is a legal claim, and since April 2025, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) can fine firms directly, without going to court, up to £300,000 or 10% of global turnover, whichever is higher.
So, what actually counts as a genuine “was” price, and is there really a 28-day rule? We asked ecommerce experts what to check before you rewrite your pricing strategy, which mistakes could cost you, and included a handy checklist to help you stay on the right side of the law.
The CMA can now fine you directly. Here’s what changed
Black Friday doesn’t arrive until 27 November, but the discounts already have. According to new research from furniture search site uFurnish.com, more than 115,000 products had been cut by 70% or more as of 9 November, up from the usual 2,000 to 3,000.
That makes the rules matter earlier than usual. Since 6 April 2025, the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCC) has changed how pricing is policed.
Tom Bukevicius, founder of Scube Marketing, says it gives the CMA “power to investigate and fine businesses directly, without going to court first. Misleading pricing, including false ‘was’ claims, now carries much higher risk and faster enforcement.” So how do you make sure your discounts hold up?
Is there a 28-day rule for “was” prices?
You may have heard you need to charge the higher price for 28 days before you can advertise a discount. However, most experts we spoke to told us there’s no such rule. Instead, it comes down to whether customers could realistically have bought it at that price.
Justin Herring, owner of digital marketing agency Yeah! Local, told me there’s “no fixed legal rule” on the number of days. Businesses should consider “how recently and for how long they sold the product at that price, and whether customers actually bought it”, he continues.
John Beaver, founder of ergonomic workspace brand Desky, gives an example. Say you’ve sold a desk for £500 for a few months, then put it up to £700 just before Black Friday and advertise a £200 saving. The CMA “might raise an eyebrow”, he says, because customers never had a reasonable chance to buy it at £700.
That said, according to others, 28 days isn’t a bad habit to keep. Jimi Patel, co-founder of listing audit software SellerQI, calls it “a sensible internal rule”, while Lilach Bullock, a fractional CMO, recommends aiming for 28 days of clean history “as a safety margin”. Just don’t treat it as a legal minimum.
If you’re launching a new product, there are useful workarounds, too. Daria Turanska, legal manager at legal document template provider FasterDraft, doesn’t have enough price history to back up a “was” price on her new subscription, so she’s calling her Christmas discount a “seasonal offer” instead.
Black Friday pricing mistakes that could land you in trouble
The most common pricing mistakes aren’t elaborate. They’re small shortcuts that make a deal look better than it is, and any of them can put you on the wrong side of the CMA.
The classic is the quietly inflated price. Jonathan Solis, founder of the online pet store Whisker Bark, tells me the trick involves raising a price a few weeks before Black Friday so the discount looks bigger. “Customers notice, and screenshots of the old price spread fast,” he explains.
Corina Tham, Sales, Marketing and Business Development Director at VPS platform CheapForexVPS, observes the same thing: a quiet October rise, so November’s “50% off” lands right back at the usual figure.
Next come “up to” headlines. If one product hits the big number and the rest of the range is barely marked down, shoppers will feel misled once they click through. Solis points to banners where “only one leftover item actually gets the big number”. His fix is to be specific: “20% off the Ramp, not up to 50% off everything.”
Then there’s fake urgency. A timer that resets on refresh would be the obvious offender, but a sale that quietly keeps getting extended does the same job more slowly. As Solis puts it, “extending a sale over and over turns the sale price into the real price.”
How to get your discounts right, online and in store
So, how do you cash in on early Black Friday demand without straying into unethical and potentially unlawful practices?
Hai Mag, CEO of ecommerce agency Eva Commerce, recommends “anchoring ‘was’ prices to a real recent selling price, not a fictional list price”. If you’ve never sold at that number, he tells me, treat it as a risk, “not a creative choice”. He also recommends you “pick one clear offer”, as stacking a free gift, countdown and free shipping “looks like pressure tactics to customers and to regulators”.
It’s also advised to check what your tools are doing. Daniel Goh, CMO at AEO agency RankAISearch, warns that discount apps and themes can add strike-through prices and timers automatically. His straightforward advice is to “Audit your live product pages, not just your settings”.
In store, the principle is the same. Mattie Wordeman, who handles marketing for the University of Wyoming’s campus store, says a “was” price only works “if a shopper could have walked in on an ordinary Thursday and paid it”. She writes down every item’s everyday price, with the date, before anything goes into a poster or email.
Get it wrong, though, and the consequences are no longer theoretical. So how is the CMA actually using its new powers?
How the CMA is enforcing the rules
The CMA hasn’t wasted time using its new powers. It started with a review of more than 400 businesses across 19 sectors, then sent advisory letters to around a hundred firms flagging drip pricing.
The businesses in its latest investigations had all received one. It has now opened 20 investigations and, since April, settled seven cases, imposing fines of over £11.8 million and ordering more than £2.3 million in redress.
Sellers should note one case in particular. Wayfair and Appliances Direct were investigated for promoting time-limited offers that did not end when they said they would. Together with Gold’s Gym, they received penalties of over £6 million.
Whatever the courts decide, the message is the same: be able to back up every claim. Here’s your checklist to keep Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the black.
Black Friday lands on 27 November and Cyber Monday follows on 30 November, so you’ve got two sales to get right. These checks will help you cover both, wherever your customers shop.
- Export your price history now: Download a dated record of every price change for each product you’re discounting, and keep it until well after Cyber Monday.
- Check each “was” price against it: If the higher price wasn’t charged for a meaningful, recent stretch, drop the crossed-out price and advertise the current one.
- Be precise with “up to” claims: Only use them if a fair share of your range hits that discount, or name the product and the saving instead.
- Decide what happens on Cyber Monday upfront: If your Black Friday deal runs through Monday, say so from the start. If Cyber Monday is a separate offer, give it its own end date, and don’t reset the clock.
