Not every "sale" saves you money

Festival sales and flash deals are genuinely good times to buy — but they are also when misleading discounts are most common. A crossed-out MRP and a "60% off" badge cost nothing to display. Knowing a few simple checks protects your budget.

Check 1: Ignore the MRP, track the actual selling price

MRP is a printed ceiling, not a reference price. Many products sell below MRP all year. What matters is the price the product actually sold at over the past weeks. If a phone sold at a certain price last month and the "sale price" is the same, the discount is zero — no matter what the banner says.

Check 2: Compare the sale price across stores

A store-wide sale on one platform does not mean it is the cheapest option. During big sale events, competing platforms frequently match or beat each other on popular products. Run the product through a price comparison before checkout — it takes seconds and shows the live price across stores.

Check 3: Calculate the final payable amount

  • Add delivery charges (they vary by store and pincode)
  • Subtract a valid coupon from the coupons page
  • Check bank card offers — but only count them if you actually hold that card
  • Watch for "effective price" claims that assume cashback you may never use

Check 4: Be sceptical of urgency counters

"Only 2 left!" and countdown timers are designed to rush you past exactly the checks above. Genuine deals survive a ten-minute verification. If a deal cannot survive you comparing it, it was not a deal.

Remember: a real discount is a price lower than the product's normal selling price — not a price lower than an inflated MRP.

Where genuine deals do appear

Real price drops happen constantly outside big sale events too. Browsing a curated offers feed surfaces verified deals across stores, which is often calmer and cheaper than fighting through sale-day noise.

The bottom line

Judge every discount by its real selling-price history, cross-store comparison and final payable amount. Three quick checks, and fake "deals" stop working on you.