Ad description
An ad on the Argos website for children's bedroom furniture stated "Chest and Bedside Chest Package - White with Blue Handles. £37.99 Was £39.99. Save £2.00. Only available for home delivery". The bottom of the page stated "Delivery costs & reservation information. Delivery charge - £8.95 Home delivery from 5 days* ... You only pay one delivery charge per order. If ordering several items, it will be the highest of the individual charges, no matter how many additional items you order. Cannot be reserved for store pick-up".
Issue
The complainant challenged whether the ad was misleading, because the compulsory delivery charge of £8.95 was not made clear in the quoted price for the product.
Response
Argos said the information was clearly displayed at the bottom of the page and an icon on the page pointed to this information. The information stated that the charge applied per order, not per item. They said they had always presented the information this way and had not previously been informed of any concerns. They noted that this information was repeated on the 'trolley' page and also as part of the generic information, so they could not see how a consumer could be misled into making a purchase without knowing there was a delivery charge.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA considered that information about the unavoidable delivery charge was material information that should have been prominent on the product page. We noted that this information was included at the bottom of the product page and text at the top of the page made clear that the product was "Only available for home delivery". However, we also noted that the text containing the full delivery information was very small and consumers had to scroll to the bottom of the page, below the "Add to Trolley" button, to read it. We therefore considered that this information would not have been clear to consumers when making a decision about whether or not to purchase the product and we concluded that the ad was misleading.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules
3.1
3.1
Marketing communications must not materially mislead or be likely to do so.
3.3
3.3
Marketing communications must not mislead the consumer by omitting material information. They must not mislead by hiding material information or presenting it in an unclear, unintelligible, ambiguous or untimely manner.
Material information is information that the consumer needs to make informed decisions in relation to a product. Whether the omission or presentation of material information is likely to mislead the consumer depends on the context, the medium and, if the medium of the marketing communication is constrained by time or space, the measures that the marketer takes to make that information available to the consumer by other means.
and
3.4.4
3.4.4
delivery charges
(Misleading Advertising).
Action
The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Argos Ltd to make the delivery price clear near the rest of the price information.
