EU rules price reductions must be based on the lowest price in the last 30 days

EU rules price reductions must be based on the lowest price in the last 30 days(eur-lex.europa.eu)

5 points by davidkuennen 1 year ago | 5 comments

Ukv 1 year ago |

It makes sense that this prohibits doubling an item's price briefly then putting it back down and advertising it as 50% off

But if I'm understanding, this also means:

1. If you decrease a price incrementally you can only advertise a smaller discount (€100 -> €50 is "50% off", whereas €100 -> €50 -> €40 in same period can only be "20% off" because now €50 is a prior price)

2. You cannot advertise brief regular sales, like if you want to offer 50% off on the last friday of a month, because the previous sale was too close (even though it's at full price 97% of the time)

Which seem like unintentded consequences. I think using something like 25th percentile price over the last 60 days may have made more sense.

panny 1 year ago |

Are they trying to outlaw deflation now? I don't understand what they're trying to regulate. I can sell my property for whatever price I choose, no?

mtmail 1 year ago | |

This case was against Aldi, a discounter supermarket chain, about how they marked their price reductions. Real estate sales isn't affected.

panny 1 year ago | | |

Oh, I see. So the EU is just trying to outlaw the practice of marking the price up for a day so they can then mark it "50% off" the following day. Good for the EU. That practice stinks.

rsynnott 1 year ago | |

You can reduce it all you want. What you can't do is say "this house is 50% off" because you doubled the asking price for half an hour the previous week and then dropped it again.

It's a false advertising issue, not price controls.