Background
Summary of Council decision:
Two issues were investigated, both of which were Upheld.
Ad description
A website for Medi Supplies, www.medisupplies.co.uk, an online retailer of medical products, featured two product pages seen in August 2023:
a. The ad for “Koolpak Kool Patch” included text which stated “Special offer – buy today for the lowest price on the market.” Red text underneath the product’s name at the top of the listing stated “As Low £2.76”.
b. The ad for “SoChlor DST Disinfectant Tablets” featured red text underneath the product’s name at the top of the listing which stated “As Low As £2.64”.
Issue
The complainant challenged whether the price claims in:
1. ad (a), that the product was available at “the lowest price on the market”, was misleading and could be substantiated; and
2. ad (b) was misleading and could be substantiated
Response
1. Medi Supplies Ltd said that the product seen in ad (a), the Koolpak Kool Patch, had been reduced several years earlier as part of a clearance offer, and the claim “lowest price on the market” had been added following online checks made at the time. They explained that the claim had not been removed due to an oversight when the price of the product increased in 2022. They believed the impact of that error was minimal, due to low sales for the product, and confirmed that the product page had been updated once they were made aware of the issue.
2. Regarding ad (b), which listed SoChlor DST Disinfectant Tablets as being available from “As Low As £2.64”, Medi Supplies said that their website presented an “As Low As” price mainly for ease of comparison when viewing a product and its associated accessories, if any were available for purchase alongside the main product. They said that for most products, particularly any sold in volume, their approach was straightforward because the website defaulted to the lowest price it could find in a price grid seen on a product’s page [which included accessories]. They believed that was usually a fair reflection of the lowest price a consumer could pay for an item, which was why they used “As Low As”, rather than “From” to describe the pricing.Medi Supplies said that this system caused issues with a small minority of products when an expensive item included much cheaper accessories within the page’s price grid. They said that in such circumstances they manually excluded certain product lines from their “As Low As” prices or amended pages they found that encountered such issues. They explained that a diluter bottle intended for use with the tablets seen in ad (b) had been available for the advertised “As Low As” price, rather than the tablets themselves.
Medisupplies said that even if an “As Low As” price reflected a lower priced accessory seen on a product page, rather than the more expensive main product, consumers would be able to see the actual price of the main product prior to adding it to their basket or purchasing it. They reiterated their belief that the impact of the error would have been minimal, due to low sales figures, and that they had amended the page to reflect the lowest price of the tablets, and not the diluter bottle, once made aware of the issue. They also said that if a consumer had contacted them quoting the prices seen in either ad, they would have honoured the advertised prices.
Assessment
1. Upheld
The ASA considered that consumers would understand the claim that they could purchase the product featured in ad (a) “for the lowest price on the market” to mean that it could not be purchased from any other retailer across the UK for less than £2.76, and that the claim was accurate at the time they viewed the ad.
We considered that to substantiate the claim that the product had been available at “the lowest price on the market” Medi Supplies would have needed to provide comparative sales data covering all retailers of the product across the UK. We were not provided with such substantiation, however, and we noted that the complainant reported seeing the product featured in ad (a) available at a lower price from another online retailer.
Because Medi Supplies did not provide any evidence to suggest that the product had been available to purchase from them at the lowest price on the market, we concluded that the claim had not been substantiated and was therefore misleading.
On that point, ad (a) breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising), 3.7 (Substantiation) and 3.17 (Prices).
2. Upheld
Ad (b) was a product page for SoChlor DST Disinfectant Tablets. Because the claim “As Low As £2.64” appeared underneath the product’s name, and the product description discussed the uses and specifications of the disinfectant tablets, we considered consumers would expect the “As Low As” price to refer to the lowest price at which they could purchase SoChlor DST Disinfectant Tablets from the Medi Supplies website.
We noted that the product page also included related accessories for use with the disinfectant tablets, namely a diffuser bottle and three different sizes of diluter bottles. All the products listed on the page included price ranges which showed decreasing individual unit costs if they were bought in different multiples - for example, the disinfectant tablets were listed as costing £15.60 if between one to five packs were purchased, and £13.80 if 10 or more packs were purchased. We noted that £13.80 was the cheapest available price to purchase the tablets and that none of the prices referred to the £2.64 price seen at the top of the ad. We noted that further down the page, under the price options for the one litre diluter bottle, the lowest listed price, applicable if consumers purchased 10+ bottles, was £2.64.
We understood that the website would, by default, display the lowest attainable price listed for a product on its product page, and that problems could sometimes arise when a product page included accessories which were available at a lower price than the main product. That appeared to be the case for the product listed in ad (b), and therefore meant that the stated price did not apply to the product itself.Because the SoChlor DST Disinfectant Tablets were not available at the stated price, we concluded that the price claim had not been substantiated and was misleading.
On that point, ad (a) breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising), 3.7 (Substantiation) and 3.17 (Prices).
Action
The ads must not appear again in their current form. We told Medi Supplies Ltd to ensure that future pricing claims seen on their website were accurate and could be substantiated.
