Earlier this week, the ASA published four rulings against Boots, DBZ Marketplace (Debenhams), John Lewis and Shop Direct (May 2026), focusing on reference pricing and discount claims. Across all four rulings, the ASA found that certain price promotions were misleading under the CAP Code because the advertised savings did not reflect a genuine ‘usual’ selling price.
The rulings underscore the ASA’s continued strict approach to savings and reference price claims and reinforce a clear principle that discount claims must reflect real, substantiated savings – not just historical or nominal prices. We have summarised below the salient details from each ruling and have outlined key messages for businesses (and marketers) to be mindful of when presenting price promotion claims.
Reference pricing
Reference pricing is any claim that compares a current price to another price to suggest a saving, such as: “Was £100 / now £60”. Reference pricing also covers RRP’s or ‘usual price’ statements, strikethrough prices of percentage discount statements.
Including a reference price in an offer can create a point that consumers use as a base for estimating the value of the product and might reduce the effort that consumers put into shopping around and comparing prices. A reference price must represent the genuine, usual selling price of the product and further, that price comparisons are not misleading and are supported by robust evidence. Under the CAP Code, price statements must not mislead consumers and so marketing statements that present misleading information would infringe the Code.
ASA Rulings on Price Reductions
Boots
This ruling concerned two Boots online display ads featuring reference price comparisons. The ASA assessed whether the pricing and associated savings claims were misleading.
This was a split ruling in which one claim was held to be complaint with the CAP Code because the product had been sold at the reference price for a longer period than the promotional price and in significant quantities. Conversely, a separate product price comparison was held to be non-compliant because the reference price was not established as the genuine usual selling price, as the product had been sold at reduced prices for a longer period. For this reason, the savings claim was considered misleading.
John Lewis
A similar factual pattern was examined in this ruling which featured savings claims for laptops. The ASA assessed whether a £150 saving claim for a MacBook Air and a £450 saving claim for an ASUS Zenbook were misleading. John Lewis argued that the savings were based on the prices immediately preceding the promotions and referenced wider market pricing and internal averages. However, the ASA considered that consumers would interpret the claims as genuine savings against the products’ usual selling prices. In both cases, the ASA found that John Lewis had not provided sufficient pricing and sales history to demonstrate that the reference prices were established usual selling prices. The products had been sold at multiple fluctuating prices, with limited evidence showing how long they were sold at the claimed reference prices. In the absence of adequate substantiation, the ASA concluded that both savings claims were misleading. As a result, both ads breached the CAP Code rules on misleading advertising, substantiation and pricing, and were required not to appear again in the form complained of.
Shop Direct Home Shopping
This ASA ruling concerns two product pages on the Very website that featured “was/now” pricing and savings claims. Which? challenged whether the crossed out reference prices and associated savings were misleading. Very accepted that the reference prices had appeared due to human error, after its furniture team failed to manually suppress outdated “was” prices. In assessing the complaint, the ASA applied the CTSI Guidance, which requires price comparisons to be genuine and based on the usual selling price. The ASA held that the reference price had been listed for an insufficiently short timeframe and could not be considered as the usual selling price. For this reason, the ASA held that the savings claims were misleading and breached CAP Code rules on misleading advertising, substantiation and pricing.
DBZ Marketplace Online Ltd (trading as Debenhams)
This ASA ruling concerned two Debenhams video display ads featuring percentage discount claims and crossed‑out reference prices used in online ads for third-party products. The claims suggested significant savings based on strikethrough prices and percentage discount claims, which the ASA found to be misleading under the CAP Code.
The ASA considered that: (i) the higher “was” prices were not the prices consumers typically paid and (ii) the products had been sold at lower prices for long periods. On this basis, the ASA concluded that consumers would interpret the ads as offering genuine savings against usual selling prices. Debenhams failed to provide sufficient evidence demonstrating that the crossed‑out prices represented the products’ usual selling prices. In particular, the products had been sold at reduced prices for prolonged periods prior to the ads, and pricing histories were incomplete. The ASA therefore held that the savings claims were not genuine and that the ads were misleading, breaching CAP Code rules on misleading advertising, substantiation and pricing.
Marketplace liability
The DBZ ruling is also highly relevant to marketplace operators as it reiterates the responsibility of marketplaces for products listed on their platform. Debenhams argued that it operated solely as a marketplace provider acting as agent for third‑party sellers, who were responsible for setting prices and complying with pricing legislation. However, the ASA considered that, as the platform hosting the ads, Debenhams remained responsible for ensuring that advertised savings were genuine. This ruling therefore reiterates that online marketplaces are not passive intermediaries and will be treated as “advertisers” under the CAP Code.
Scrutiny of online marketplaces
The ASA will look to the platform if the ad is on the platform’s site/branding. As such, platforms must take active steps to validate pricing claims, such as:
- require sellers to disclose pricing history submission for any discount claim;
- consider applying automated listing blocks if the prior “was” price is not evidenced; and
- ensuring that supplier terms and conditions provide scope to undertake compliance audits on products listings in advance of ‘go live’ listing dates.
CTSI Guidance
Although not legally binding, the ASA drew directly on key principles from recently updated guidance from the Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI). Updated in April 2026, the Guidance for Traders on Pricing Practices (the ‘CTSI Guidance’) draws upon core consumer protection legislation, including the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCCA), and presents a helpful summary and examples of good practice to assist fair-dealing traders in assessing their pricing practices.
A developing compliance framework
There is a key distinction between the ASA’s remit in investigating misleading advertising practices and separate legislative frameworks that apply to price labelling requirements. The ASA investigated the above rulings under the CAP Code because the issue concerned reference pricing and savings claims and whether those claims were genuine and substantiated. Separately, price per unit legislation (enforced by Trading Standards) applies to product pricing displays, requiring both the selling and unit price of products to be listed. UK law was recently updated with the introduction of the Price Marking (Amendment) Order 2025 requiring traders to provide accurate selling and unit pricing information, including standardised unit pricing across an expanded range of products.
Enforcement climate
The ASA is now actively screening digital ads using AI tools and it is noteworthy that these rulings were identified for investigation following intelligence gathered by the ASA’s Active Ad Monitoring system. The investigation was triggered as part of a proactive enforcement sweep, not reactive complaint handling. It is clear that pricing promotions (especially Black Friday) are a targeted enforcement priority for the ASA and marketers should be mindful of this enhanced and pro-active enforcement approach. Any online pricing promotion may be independently reviewed by the ASA — even if no complaint is raised, which reinforces the need for pre launch compliance checks and robust pricing evidence.
Key compliance messages
Transparency on price promotions remains a sensitive topic and a key enforcement priority for the ASA. Drawing on these four ASA rulings and also taking into consideration the recently updated CTSI Guidance marketers (including online marketplaces) should closely scrutinise the presentation of pricing claims and assess:
- whether the higher price was charged for a meaningful period;
- whether the product was sold at the promotional price for longer than the reference price; and
- whether the comparison represented a genuine saving
Further, the ASA expects data-backed pricing claims and so by way of summary checklist, marketers and retailers should be able to:
- substantiate all “was/now” claims and ensure the higher price reflects the genuine usual selling price. Crucially, the higher “reference” price must be genuine and not artificially inflated;
- apply ‘duration discipline’ and avoid running promotions longer than the reference period;
- maintain evidence of historic pricing and sales data in order to substantiate the credibility of discount price statements; and
- review campaign activity in particular for seasonal promotion and Black Friday events.
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