How to read a sale.

Right now our scanner sees 37,837 items marked down across 94 of the 172 brands we watch — out of 146,411 products in total. That is 26% of everything on sale on any given day. Which is the first thing worth understanding.

If most of a shop is discounted, the discount is the price. A brand with three quarters of its catalogue marked down is not running a sale; it has set its list prices high and its real prices lower, permanently. Nothing about that is illegal or even unusual — but the percentage tells you nothing about whether you are getting a deal.

Live right now — 13 brands we track have at least 45% of a 200-plus catalogue on sale:

• Beckett Simonon10,217 of 10,333 items — 99%
• Peak Design196 of 250 items — 78%
• Nomatic532 of 722 items — 74%
• Roundhouse1,472 of 2,061 items — 71%
• XSUIT2,000 of 2,893 items — 69%

We only count brands whose whole catalogue we can read. A shop's own “sale” page is 100% on sale by definition — quoting that as proof of anything would be the same trick in reverse.

Look at the crossed-out numbers. If the “was” prices are $80, $100, $200, $450 — clean multiples of ten across a whole catalogue — those are not prices that emerged from anything. Real prices are untidy. They end in 95 and 99 and 7. A tidy anchor is a number chosen to be crossed out.

The same tell shows up in the percentages. When we read a thousand markdowns from one brand and 98% of them land on exactly three round numbers — half off, thirty off, thirty-five off — that is a pricing policy, not a clearance. Clearance is messy, because it is driven by whatever did not sell.

This one matters because it is the tell most often mistaken for dishonesty. An outlet sells past-season colours, discontinued styles and excess stock at a standing lower price. Several of the best brands we track say exactly that, in their own words, on their own outlet pages — and they are being straight with you.

Outlet stock is often genuinely good value. Just know what you are buying: last year's colour, a discontinued make, or a size run with the middle missing. “40% off” on an outlet page is a description of the inventory, not a countdown.

The oldest one: the price rises quietly in June, the “sale” lands in August, and you pay more than you would have in spring. The only defence is knowing the price before the sale existed — which is the entire reason we record every reading and never delete one.

Being straight about our own limits: we started recording in August 2026. Catching a pre-markup takes months of history, so we cannot yet name a brand doing it — and we have not found one. When our records are deep enough to show it, we will publish it with the receipts. Until then, the practical defence is yours: screenshot the price when you first notice something you want.

The crossed-out number on a product page is typed in by the retailer. Nobody verifies it. It does not have to be a price the item ever sold for, and on plenty of products it never was. It is a reference point supplied by the person who wants you to buy — which makes it the least reliable number on the page, and the one your eye is drawn to first.

Ignore it. The only comparison worth making is against what the thing has actually cost over time.