ASA ruling on furniture company

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has ruled that DUSK (Retail) Ltd t/a DUSK has breached the CAP Code by advertising mattresses as having a higher, undiscounted price to substantiate a savings claim.

Pages on DUSK’s website stated, ‘END OF SUMMER SALE, UP TO 50% OFF + AN EXTRA 20% OFF EVERYTHING. USE CODE: BH20’, ‘GET AN EXTRA 15% OFF*. USE CODE: EXTRA15’, ‘BECAUSE IT’S PAYDAY GET AN EXTRA 20% OFF*. USE CODE: PAYDAY20’, and, ‘It’s Our Birthday! TO CELEBRATE UNLOCK YOUR MYSTERY DISCOUNT. Code: REVEAL. UP TO 20% OFF’.

DUSK provided data for three mattresses raised in the complaint, which included the reference prices, the actual selling price, and the quantity of mattresses sold. They said that at the time the ads appeared, the reference prices reflected the established usual selling prices of the products, and many customers had purchased them at this price. Where customers had paid less than the advertised price it had been the result of a promotion.

ASA considered that consumers would understand the discount codes in each promotion to represent genuine saving against the usual selling price of the products. The prices provided by DUSK were also considered when assessing whether the reference prices represented the usual selling prices. However, as discount codes were often available and displayed across the site as a whole ASA considered consumers were unlikely to consider that the higher, undiscounted prices were the usual selling prices of the products.