Retailers selling electronics, cosmetics, furniture and clothes have been accused by the consumer watchdog of deliberately misleading shoppers looking for bargains in the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales.
The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) has launched legal proceedings against a number of retailers nationwide for breaking sales pricing laws, with court appearances likely early in the new year.
Other traders have been interviewed under caution with a fresh round of prosecutions set to follow, the CCPC said.
The looming court appearances are connected to pricing breaches identified by the commission in online sweeps conducted over the 2023-2024 winter sales season, including Black Friday.
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The news comes are Irish consumers are set to spend tens of millions of euro between today and Monday with more than a third of Irish adults likely to go in search of discounts, spending an average of more than €300 each.
While Black Friday remains popular, interest appears to be waning, with research published from the CCPC last week highlighting a “significantly” diminishing desire to shop in the sales window.
Only 36 per cent of those polled said they were likely to buy anything this year, compared with 45 per cent in 2023, the research found.
It also pointed to very low levels of consumer trust in discounts, with less than a third of consumers believing the discounts displayed by businesses were genuine.
The clear lack of trust comes despite strong legal requirements on businesses when displaying discounts.
Sale prices must be genuine and clearly show the consumer the previous price, while references to “recommended retail price[s]” cannot be used to mislead consumers into thinking that a product has been discounted by more than it has.
“The CCPC carried out a large number of sales pricing inspections [last year] looking at both online and in-store pricing,” said CCPC chairman Brian McHugh.
He noted that inspectors had found “many excellent examples of accurate sales pricing and sales communications” but said they had also identified retailers “where there was significant and widespread breaches of the law. Those traders are now being prosecuted by the CCPC, with the first wave of cases due before the courts in January.”
Misleading sale discounts harm consumers and harm competition, he said.
“Businesses need to able to compete for consumers openly and honestly on price,” he continued and called on consumers and business owners to report “any suspected fake discounts or misleading pricing” to the commission.
He said consumer-protection officers would be carrying out inspections across Ireland and online and assessing the discounts on offer to consumers “to ensure they are genuine. The CCPC is committed to ensuring compliance with the pricing regulations and to using its powers in the event of non-compliance.”
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