Ad description
Six product listings on www.scs.co.uk for the Invictus and I Sense range of carpets, seen in April 2016. It featured several carpets on sale with an ‘MRP’ price and a lower ‘Now’ price, for example, “Invictus Auriga carpet Now £21.99, MRP £38.99 40% OFF” and “iSense Serene Carpet Now £34.99 MRP £52.99 30% OFF”.
Issue
Carpetright Plc challenged whether the manufacturer’s retail prices (MRPs) and associated savings claims were misleading and could be substantiated.
Response
A Share & Sons Ltd t/a SCS said that they were selling a range of Invictus and iSense products with a saving against the MRP price. They confirmed that all the products were supplied to them from Associated Weavers who also provided the MRP prices that they had referenced against their current retail price.
They stated that they asked Associated Weavers to verify the prices against all of the retailers they supplied their products to. This ensured good practice in relation to price fixing and that they were not making contact with other retailers directly to review selling prices.
They explained that Associated Weavers conducted regular price surveys at intervals with several of their retail customers. The results of these surveys were used to provide SCS with the MRP price. They stated that the manufacturer had based the MRP on the highest prices at which their carpets had been available for resale from their retailers.
They provided a copy of their price list for the Invictus and iSense ranges which included the MRP prices, and their own prices for each carpet in both ranges from June 2015 up to July 2016.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA considered that in the context of the ad and the presentation of the savings claims, consumers would understand the MRPs to be the price recommended by the manufacturer and at which retailers generally sold the goods across the market. Consumers would therefore expect the MRP to be a genuine selling price and to make a saving of the stated amount by purchasing those carpets from SCS. As such, we expected to see evidence to demonstrate that, at the time the ad was seen, the products were available from other retailers at the MRPs stated.
The SCS price list set out the MRP (as provided by Associated Weavers) for each carpet within the range and the prices at which the carpets were offered by SCS. We had not seen any evidence to show that other retailers had sold the carpets at the stated MRP prices and we noted that the carpets were sold by SCS at a lower price than the stated MRP.
Because SCS had not demonstrated that the carpets were generally sold at the stated MRPs at the time the ad was seen, we concluded that those prices were not a genuine selling price and the savings claims based on them were 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. (Misleading advertising), 3.7 3.7 Before distributing or submitting a marketing communication for publication, marketers must hold documentary evidence to prove claims that consumers are likely to regard as objective and that are capable of objective substantiation. The ASA may regard claims as misleading in the absence of adequate substantiation. (Substantiation), 3.17 3.17 Price statements must not mislead by omission, undue emphasis or distortion. They must relate to the product featured in the marketing communication. (Prices) and 3.40 3.40 Price comparisons must not mislead by falsely claiming a price advantage. Comparisons with a recommended retail prices (RRPs) are likely to mislead if the RRP differs significantly from the price at which the product or service is generally sold. (Price comparisons).
Action
We told A Share & Sons Ltd t/a SCS to ensure that future references to MRPs reflected the price at which the products concerned were generally sold.
