Cabinet will tackle deceptive discounts by sellers

The Cabinet will put an end to a misleading discount system that some sellers use at online and in-person stores to make sales look more attractive than they actually are. 

The new rule says that entrepreneurs must deduct all discounts from the lowest price they have quoted 30 days prior to the offer. This means that a seller cannot temporarily raise the price of an item, just to lower it and falsely present it as a a discount, according to the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate.

Under the rule, stores can still make actual discounts on items, but consumers will not have to deal with misleading price reductions, said Economic Minister Micky Adriaansens. "The fact that we are going to do something about this is also good news for entrepreneurs who also had to deal with unfair competition as a result," she said.

The regulations came from a European-wide decision to implement this rule across the EU by mid-2022. However, the Cabinet will make an exception for successive price reductions: for example, a piece of clothing that is first 20 percent, then 30 percent and then 50 percent off can be discounted from the original price from which the first discount was taken. Products on the market for less than 30 days and items that expire quickly are also exempt.