Background
Summary of Council decision:
Two issues were investigated, both of which were Upheld.
Ad description
A website for Oak Furniture Superstore, www.oakfurnituresuperstore.co.uk, seen on 15 April 2024. A banner at the top of the home page featured text which stated “SPRING SAVINGS EVENT LAST CHANCE Hurry! Ends in 0 Days 05 Hours 08 Minutes 21 Seconds”. In a search box, text stated “herringbone” and underneath were displayed the search results showing images of various furniture products accompanied by text showing “Was” prices compared to “Now” prices. Text stated “Herringbone Solid Oak Super King Bed Now £699 Was £999 [crossed out] Save £300”.
Issue
The complainant challenged whether the:
1. use of the countdown clock misleadingly implied that the sales promotion was time limited, because the same promotion was still available under a new name shortly after the countdown ended; and
2. savings claims were misleading and could be substantiated.
Response
1. Moreham Wood Ltd t/a Oak Furniture Superstore said the countdown clock on their website clearly indicated to customers that the promotion was ending on the advertised date. The ad showed the results from searching “herringbone” in the websites’ search bar. These products were not included in the “SPRING SAVINGS EVENT”. A product search on the website would return any product available for sale and not specifically products in a current promotion. Products that were available as part of the promotion, were clearly advertised on the Flash Savings promotional page. That promotional page was accessible by clicking on the Spring Savings Event banner which was next to the countdown clock.
The Flash Savings promotion entitled customers purchasing any product included within the promotion to an extra five per cent off the sale price with a unique promotional discount code. The discount code was again clearly advertised on the Flash Savings promotional page. The discount code expired in line with the promotion end date.
A new Price Drop promotion began on 18 April and ran until 19 April. The Price Drop promotion entitled customers purchasing the products included within the promotion to an extra five per cent off the sale price with a unique promotional discount code. The promotional code expired in line with the promotion end date.
Different products were on promotion as part of the Price Drop event, so the same products were not eligible for a promotional saving across the Flash Savings promotion and the Price Drop promotion. To avoid customer confusion and ensure a clear separation of promotions, they used a unique colour pallet for each promotion. The colour change was also replicated in the banner that housed the countdown clock.
2. The example in the ad highlighted the Herringbone King Size Bed. The Herringbone range was a new range first launched in December 2023 at which point the King Size Bed retailed at its higher price until the 23 December 2023 when it moved to a sale price of £699.
The range was launched later than planned and was not retailing at the higher price for the full introductory period initially intended. Upon inspection, following notification of the complaint, it appeared that a rotation of Herringbone range pricing. Moving prices back to the original higher price was overlooked due to their highly manual processes. With the issue now highlighted, it allowed them to review the supporting processes and they confirmed that the Herringbone range was currently selling at a higher price than in December 2023. The review enabled them to tighten up and add additional processes and checks whilst they awaited the roll out of their new IT system. They said they were actively implementing additional measures to ensure that the communication of which products were on promotion at any given time was both accurate and transparent.
They provided a unit count of sales for the Herringbone range from December 2023 to June 2024. They said that due to current system limitations, they were unable to easily and accurately break down historical sales data.
Assessment
1. Upheld
The ad featured the home page with a banner along the top which stated “SPRING SAVINGS EVENT LAST CHANCE” along with boxes displaying Days, Hours, Minutes and Seconds, that appeared to be counting down to zero. In the search box below, was the search term “herringbone” and underneath a box with a preview of the results listings for products in the Herringbone range, was shown with “was” prices crossed out and “now” prices in red writing. The ASA understood that further down the home page other discounted products were displayed with “was” and “now” prices. We considered that consumers would understand that Oak Furniture Superstore was running a promotion which was ending soon, and that the displayed discounted products were included in the promotion. Once the countdown clock reached zero those products would return to their usual selling price. We considered the phrase “Hurry! Ends in” reinforced the impression that the promotion was time-limited.
However, we understood that the products in the Herringbone range as well as the products shown further down the home page were not included in the Spring Savings Event promotion. The promotion only applied to a small, selected number of products and to see those products consumers had to click on the banner at the top of the home page to be taken to a new webpage. On that subsequent page, it stated that consumers would receive an additional five percent discount off the sale price using a discount code. We considered it was not clear to consumers from the home page that the promotion was only on selected items, and to access those items they had to click on the banner to see the products included in the promotion, or that the promotion was for an extra five per cent off sale prices on selected products. We considered that was material information that consumers required to make an informed decision about the promotion.
Furthermore, in the absence of that information, we considered consumers would expect that all items that were discounted on the website were included in the Spring Savings Event and therefore their prices would revert to a higher price once the countdown clock ended. We therefore considered that was likely to pressurise consumers into making a swift transactional decision.However, we understood that after the Spring Savings Event ended, another promotion started immediately afterwards with a new countdown clock. It operated in a similar way, whereby only a selection of products were included, but the nature of the promotion or how to access the promotional products was not made clear for the same reasons as referenced above.
Because the ad did not make clear that only selected products were included in the promotion and implied that all the products on sale were in a time-limited promotion which would revert to the usual price when the countdown ended, when that was not the case, we concluded the ad was misleading.
On that point, the ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading Advertising), 3.7 (Substantiation), 3.17 (Prices) and 8.17.4.e (Promotional marketing).
2. Upheld
The search results featured products in the Herringbone range, including the Herringbone Solid Oak Super King Bed, which all displayed “was” prices and “now” prices written in red, along with the amount consumers would save.
We understood the Herringbone range launched in early December 2023. The super king bed retailed at its higher price of £999 until 23rd December 2023, when it was reduced to £699 in the sale. We considered consumers would understand the lower price to represent a genuine saving against the usual selling price for the product and that the price had been reduced for a temporary promotional period. However, we understood the bed was not sold at its higher price for the full period initially intended and that after its price was reduced in December, the bed was not restored to its higher selling price after that sale period until June 2024. Although the Herringbone Super King bed was not included in the Spring Savings Event and therefore the sale price was not time-limited in the way the countdown clock suggested, we nonetheless expected the “was” price to represent the usual selling price. Selling the product at its higher price from the beginning of December 2023 until 23 December 2023 and then for several months at the reduced price meant that the product was offered at the lower promotional price for much longer than the higher non-promotional price. We therefore considered that the promotional price was in effect the usual selling price of the product.
Additionally, Oak Furniture Superstore provided data on the number of units sold in the Herringbone range each month between December 2023 and June 2024. But we had not been given any pricing history for any products in the Herringbone range and we understood that Oak Furniture Superstore were limited in the data they were able to provide.Because we considered that the promotional products were not usually sold at a higher non-promotional price, we concluded that the savings claims were likely to mislead consumers.
On that point, 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 Moreham Wood Ltd t/a Oak Furniture Superstore to ensure that their future ads made the basis of their promotions clear, including where the promotion applied only to selected items and how to access the included products. We also told them to ensure that future savings claims did not mislead and that they substantiated savings claims against the usual selling prices of their products.
