Ad description
A website for Wowcher, www.wowcher.co.uk, seen on 13 March 2025, featured a listing for “K18 Leave-In Molecular Repair Hair Mask”. The listing included an image of a bottle of hair product which featured the text “15ml”. Superimposed text read “NOW £28.99 £64.99 [crossed out]”. Text underneath the image stated, “SAVE 55 percent!”. Further text under the heading “Full Details” stated, “We’re offering you a K18 Leave-In Molecular Repair Hair Mask for £28.99, saving you up to 55 percent off Global Fulfillment Limited [sic] (Forever cosmetics)’s’s [sic] price of £64.99 (correct as of 20.06.2024)".
Issue
The complainant challenged whether the reference price and the associated savings claim were misleading.
Response
Wowcher Ltd stated that the merchant whose original selling price the ad referenced had not informed them that they were having a sale, which changed the price of the product to £39.99. They stated references to the price £64.99 had been removed from the listing. They added that they carried out regular checks on reference prices displayed on their site to ensure they were accurate, but on this occasion the issue was not identified prior to the ASA’s investigation.
Assessment
Upheld
The Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI) Guidance for Traders on Pricing Practices offered practical advice to traders on consumer protection laws and associated practices. While we noted that the guidance provided a set of principles rather than statutory rules, we took the Guidance into account when making our assessment.
The Guidance stated that it was important that price comparisons were genuine. Comparing a current price to a higher one when it was not the last price the product was sold at, because there had been intervening prices, was an example given in the Guidance of a price comparison that might not be genuine. The Guidance also stated that, when considering whether a price comparison was genuine, attention should be given to whether the stated reference price was a realistic selling price for that product.
The ASA understood that Wowcher was an e-commerce website through which consumers could purchase vouchers that afforded them a discount on a product or service, and that they did not sell their own products. Instead, consumers redeemed a voucher purchased from Wowcher with a merchant in order to arrange receipt of the goods or service. Because they allowed third-party merchants to advertise offers on their website, we considered that Wowcher were responsible for ensuring that those offers represented a genuine saving.
We understood that the hair product advertised was available in different sizes, and that the ad was for a 15 ml bottle of that product. The ad stated, “NOW £28.99 £64.99 [crossed out]” and “SAVE 55 percent!”. We considered consumers would understand from those claims that £64.99 was the usual price at which the relevant merchant sold the product, and that by purchasing and redeeming the voucher they would achieve a genuine saving against the usual price of the product. In order to demonstrate that £64.99 was a realistic, usual selling price for that size of the product, we expected Wowcher to provide evidence that a significant number of sales had been made at that price.
We did not receive detailed sales or pricing history for the product from Wowcher. However, we understood that £64.99 was not the immediately preceding price of the product, because the merchant whose price Wowcher was referencing currently had the product on sale for £39.99. We did not know for how long the product had been on sale, however, we noted from the ad that the last time the reference price had been verified as correct was June 2024. We therefore considered the savings claim for the product had not been made against the immediately preceding price at which the product was sold when the ad appeared. We also considered this suggested that £64.99 was not the usual selling price for that size of the product. Consequently, that meant the quoted 55 per cent saving was not genuine.
Because we had not seen evidence that the savings claims made represented a genuine saving against the usual selling price of the product, we concluded the ad was misleading.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising), 3.7 (Substantiation) and 3.17 (Prices).
Action
The ad must not appear again in the form complained of. We told Wowcher Ltd to ensure that future savings claims did not mislead and that they substantiated any savings claims against the usual selling price of the product.
