Don’t fall into the trap of retail sales this holiday shopping season

Thousands of shoppers bustled through stores — or flicked through retailers’ websites — this past weekend for Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday deals.

Advertisements for “regular price: $299, our price: $199” or “this weekend only: Save 40%!” were everywhere.

Americans have become accustomed, and addicted, to sales. But according to nonprofit consumer group Consumers’ Checkbook’s recent investigation, most stores’ sale prices are bogus discounts, with retailers offering the same “sale prices” more than half the time. The investigation found nearly all retailers use fake sales to mislead their customers. And this practice keeps worsening.

Beginning in February 2025, once a week for 24 weeks, Consumers’ Checkbook’s researchers tracked the prices that 25 national chains offered for 25-plus items. Researchers selected on-sale products representative of each company’s primary offerings (i.e. tools and appliances at Home Depot, clothing and housewares at Kohl’s, big-ticket electronics at Best Buy).

This research expands on similar projects completed in 2015, 2018 and 2022, when the organization spent 40 or more weeks tracking major retailers’ prices. Through those 10 years, fake sales have become far more prevalent. During Consumers’ Checkbook’s 2018 project, six retailers — JCPenney, Kmart, Kohl’s, Macy’s, Neiman Marcus and Sears — offered at least half of the tracked items at fake discounts more than half the time. Now, far more of the stores — 21 out of 25 — advertised sale prices more than half the time.

By constantly offering items at sale prices and rarely, if ever, offering them at regular prices, retailers are engaging in deceptive advertising to boost their profits. Seeing 50% or 60% off a regular price doesn’t mean anything if the retailer rarely, if ever, charges the higher price for it. The only way to make sure you’re snagging the best deal is to shop around.

Consumers’ Checkbook found nearly every store in the study was guilty of using misleading sales. Bass Pro Shops, Bed Bath & Beyond, Dick’s, Foot Locker, Gap, JCPenney, Michaels, Nordstrom, Old Navy and Wayfair were the biggest fake-sale offenders. Most of the items tracked at those stores were always or almost always on sale.

Banana Republic and Lululemon were outliers. Each offers discounts on only a small number of items each week, but most items researchers tracked were marked as “Final Sale” for the 24 weeks of the investigation.

The other 19 retailers labeled their items “on sale” about 76% of the time, on average, meaning far more often than not, they promoted prices as discounts that weren’t special.

Don’t assume a sale price is a good price. The store probably offers that price, or an even lower one, much of the time. Ignore any perception of savings and focus on the amount you’ll pay.

Shop. The only way to know if you’re netting a good deal is to compare prices other retailers offer. Checkbook regularly finds big store-to-store price differences for the same items. It’s not uncommon for stores to charge twice as much as their competitors for the same product. Checkbook also found, through several months, some retailers’ prices for specific items can climb or fall by as much as 100%. A quick internet search will usually help you determine whether a store is offering a low or high price. Shopping bots like Pricegrabber.com and Yahoo shopping can also be helpful. And CamelCamelCamel tracks prices for merchandise Amazon has sold in the past several months.

If you find a lower price online, ask for a price match. Many stores will match lower prices from their competitors, even online sellers.

Don’t fall for tricks. All the bogus sales and discounts are designed to make you feel good about the prices you pay and convince you to buy now and buy more. Even if you receive a genuinely great deal, don’t let those savings push you to spend more on other stuff.

Call or email stores to seek competitive bids. A bad-for-consumers policy that manufacturers enforce for many big-ticket items (appliances, electronics, etc.) is the use of “minimum-advertised prices,” or MAP. Designed to boost profits and squelch competition for large retailers that have a lot of clout with manufacturers, these policies require retailers to advertise product prices at or above preset minimums. Because of MAP, you won’t see the best prices on most major brands of appliances from online searches or sales circulars. But MAP policies don’t apply to prices quoted to customers in person, on the phone, via email or via a loyalty club. Stores, particularly independent ones, often quote appliance prices below MAP if they know that’s what it takes to close a deal.