Digital Discounts and Consumer Rights: The EU's Warning to Online Retailers

EU consumer screening misleading online discounts 2026

The European Commission's joint screening of online discount practices with national consumer authorities, published on March 26, 2026, provides a revealing window into the mechanics of digital retail pricing and the extent to which algorithmic price management has outpaced regulatory supervision. The investigation focused on Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions — the calendar's most commercially significant discount periods — and found that a substantial proportion of advertised discounts did not comply with EU consumer law.

The specific violation at issue is the manipulation of reference prices: the 'before' figure against which the discount is calculated. Under the EU Omnibus Directive, the reference price for a product must be the lowest price at which it was offered in the 30 days preceding the sale.

This rule was introduced precisely to prevent the practice of inflating reference prices artificially — marking up a product from its normal selling price before a sale in order to make the subsequent discount appear larger. The investigation found that this practice remains widespread despite the directive's existence.

What makes the problem particularly difficult to address is the automated, dynamic nature of modern e-commerce pricing. Large platforms set prices algorithmically, adjusting them dozens of times per day in response to demand signals, competitor pricing, and inventory levels.

Tracing whether a specific reference price was genuinely the lowest price in the preceding 30 days requires access to historical pricing data that platforms have not always been willing to provide to national enforcement authorities. The Commission has signalled that follow-up enforcement actions will be taken and that it expects national authorities to use the full range of sanctions available under consumer law.