Kbb News

Posted: 28/07/2010

Which? looks at 'special offers'

Which? magazine reveals how some furniture ‘special offers'went on and on.

According to Which?, who tracked 12,793 online prices for seven months at eight national furniture chains, there appears to be good reason to be sceptical about sales.

The trade has been aware of 'never ending sales'for some time, but this exposure carries more weight as it is by a recognised independent champion of consumers' rights.

To produce its damning report on ‘sale' prices and ‘special offers' that appears in the August issue of its magazine, Which? monitored online prices for over half a year.

It confirmed, for example, that many items were in a sale for far longer than at the preceding higher price. Harvey's Caprice sofa was on a sale for 30 of the 32 weeks - and the website stated that the ‘before' price had applied for just two weeks in December 2009.

In one instance, the ‘sale' price was relabelled as an ‘extra discount' without the price changing at all. The £399 sale price of the Ashleigh divan at Bensons for Beds (‘after-sale' price £799) became an ‘extra discount' at £399 after Christmas and stayed there for 11 weeks before reverting to a ‘sale' price of £399.

The Which? report concentrates on sales of freestanding furniture and beds, but there is good reason to believe that the same sales ‘technique' is used for kitchen and bathroom sales too. Only last week, the editor of kbb News' blog included a post about a questionable special offer from a bathroom retailer.

Which? says it thinks that many of the offers it tracked made customers believe they were getting great savings by boasting discounts that may not actually exist, or were misleading.

Which? notes that there are government guidelines that set out how shops should promote sale prices, but they have shortcomings that it thinks companies take advantage of. It is passing its findings to the OFT to further investigate never-ending sales and ensure that companies are transparent about prices.

See also: Which? way up!