How to spot a fake sale in South Africa

Plenty of "sales" at South African shops are not really sales. The price gets marked up first, or the item has sat at the so-called discount for months. Here is how to check before you buy.

Check the was-price against the real history

The strikethrough price is the easiest number to fake. A shop can set it to almost anything. What matters is what the item actually sold for over the past weeks and months. If the was-price is far above the real selling price, the saving is smaller than it looks. On every deal page we show the highest and lowest price we have recorded, so you can see whether the was-price is believable.

Watch for the permanent sale

Some items are "on sale" all year. If a product has held the same discounted price for months, that price is just the price, not a deal. The price-history chart on each page makes this obvious: a flat line means nothing has changed, no matter what the badge says.

Be careful around big sale events

Around Black Friday and similar events, some prices creep up shortly before the event so the markdown looks bigger on the day. Compare the price to a month earlier, not to the day before. A genuine event deal is below the item's normal run of prices, not just below a fresh spike.

Look at the lowest price, not the biggest percentage

A "70 percent off" can be worse value than a "30 percent off" if the first one started from an inflated price. The number that matters is whether the current price is at or near the lowest the item has actually reached. That is the figure we lead with.

How we check

We record the price of each item over time and keep the full history. On a deal page you get the lowest and highest we have seen, the price the item usually sells at, and a chart of how the price moved. That lets you judge a deal on real numbers, not on the marketing.

A quick checklist

Before you buy, ask three things:

• Is the current price at or near the lowest this item has reached?
• Is the was-price believable, or higher than the item has ever really sold for?
• Has it been "on sale" for months, which makes the discount just the normal price?

If you are not sure, the price history will tell you. Browse the deals or read the biggest genuine drops.