Frasers Group-owned Sports Direct is being questioned over its online pricing strategy and faces claims by consumer watchdog Which? that it could be breaking the law by misleading shoppers into thinking they are getting a good deal.
The consumer body, which has looked at the value sportswear retailer’s prices ranging from trainers to hoodies, said it had reported the retailer to the Competition and Markets Authority after uncovering what it claimed were “some questionable and dodgy pricing tactics” on its website, The Guardian newspaper reported.
The organisation said it had found products being sold on SportsDirect.com with recommended retail prices (RRPs) “that appear to be misleading”, as its researchers couldn’t find the products sold at that RRP price anywhere else online. It meant people may be being misled “into thinking they are getting a better deal than they really are”, the report claims. Which? said that after being alerted to the RRPs by some readers, it examined the pricing of 160 products on the retailer’s website.
According to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), shoppers understand the RRP to be the price an item is generally sold at so might think the price was “a great deal” compared with the “normal” price across the market, said Which? It added that it found examples of products where the researchers could find no other online retailer selling them at or above the Sports Direct reference price, “leading researchers to question if these were in fact genuine”.
Sports Direct hasn’t commented.
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