Not every red sticker is your friend
Walk into any UK supermarket or electronics store and you are surrounded by promises. "Was £10, now £7." "Buy one get one free." "Lowest price ever." The signage is bold, the colours are urgent, and the message is clear: you would be daft not to grab this. But here is something worth sitting with for a moment — retailers employ entire teams of pricing strategists and behavioural psychologists whose job it is to make you feel like you are getting a bargain, regardless of whether you actually are. That "was" price might have existed for two weeks six months ago. The "lowest price ever" might be 5p cheaper than last Tuesday. And the BOGOF might be on something you only needed one of. Learning to see through these tactics is not about being cynical — it is about spending your money where it genuinely goes furthest.
The foundation: know your normal prices
The single most powerful weapon against fake deals is simply knowing what things normally cost. If you buy semi-skimmed milk every week, you know roughly what it should be. If you buy chicken breasts regularly, you have a feel for whether £5.50 per kilo is a steal or standard. This price awareness builds naturally over time, but you can accelerate it by browsing leaflets regularly on CatalogFlix. Because expired leaflets stay on the site (greyed out but readable), you can actually track how prices have moved over recent weeks. That creates a personal price memory that no amount of red-and-yellow signage can fool.
For bigger purchases — electronics, appliances, furniture — price tracking matters even more. A television "reduced" from £599 to £449 sounds like a £150 saving, but if it has been £449 at three other retailers for the past month, the "was" price is meaningless. Which? has documented numerous cases of misleading reference pricing in UK retail, and their advice is consistent: always check the current price elsewhere before getting excited about a discount.
Six tactics retailers use — and how to counter them
1. The inflated "was" price
UK trading standards rules say that a product must have been sold at the higher price for a reasonable period before it can be advertised as reduced. But "reasonable period" is vague, and enforcement is patchy. Some retailers will bump a price up for a few weeks, then drop it back down and call it a deal. The counter is straightforward: ignore the "was" price entirely and focus on the actual price. Is £7 a good price for this item compared to what other shops charge right now? That is the only question that matters.
2. Shrinkflation
This one is sneaky because the price on the shelf stays the same — but the product gets smaller. A bag of crisps that used to be 150g is now 130g. A jar of coffee that was 200g is now 190g. Same price, less product. That is effectively a price increase, and it relies on shoppers not noticing. Your defence is the price-per-kilogram label, which supermarkets are legally required to display. Get in the habit of glancing at it, especially on products you buy regularly. If the per-kilo price has jumped, you are paying more regardless of what the shelf price says. The ONS has actually published research on shrinkflation, confirming that it is widespread and accelerating across the UK grocery market.
3. Multi-buy pressure
"3 for £5" feels like a deal, and sometimes it genuinely is. But ask yourself: do you actually need three? If you only need one tub of yoghurt and it costs £2 individually, buying three to "save" means spending £3 more than you needed to. Multi-buys only represent genuine savings if you were going to buy that quantity anyway and the per-unit price is actually lower. Do the maths before you load up the trolley. Supermarkets love multi-buys because they increase basket size — that is the whole point, and it works brilliantly on shoppers who do not stop to calculate.
4. The anchor price
This is a psychological trick rather than a pricing one. Retailers place a premium product at a high price next to a mid-range product at a normal price. The mid-range product suddenly looks like great value by comparison, even though its price has not changed. You see this constantly in electronics — a £1,200 laptop next to a £799 laptop makes the cheaper one feel like a steal, even if £799 is exactly what it is worth. Always evaluate a price on its own merits, not in relation to whatever expensive item happens to be sitting next to it on the shelf.
5. Percentage discounts that obscure actual prices
"50% off" triggers excitement. Our brains love a big number. But 50% off an inflated price is just a normal price with theatre around it. And a 20% discount at one retailer might still be more expensive than full price at another. The fix is simple: always check the final price against competitors. On CatalogFlix, you can browse current leaflets from Currys, Argos and other retailers to see what everyone is actually charging, rather than getting distracted by discount percentages.
6. Limited-time urgency
"Today only!" "While stocks last!" "Ends midnight!" These phrases are designed to short-circuit your rational thinking and push you towards an impulse purchase. Sometimes the deal really is time-limited — but even then, rushing into a purchase you have not thought through is rarely a good idea. If you would not have bought the item yesterday at full price, ask yourself honestly whether you actually want it, or whether the ticking clock is doing the wanting for you.
Timing your purchases well
Genuine deals do exist, and timing is everything. Electronics tend to be cheapest during Black Friday (late November) and the January sales. Garden furniture drops in price around September when retailers clear summer stock. Winter coats are cheapest in February. Supermarket items go on offer in rotating cycles — if your favourite coffee was discounted three weeks ago, it will probably come around again in another three to four weeks. Browsing CatalogFlix regularly helps you build a sense of these cycles so you can plan ahead rather than reacting to whatever is in front of you today.
The question that saves the most money
Before any purchase — whether it is a £3 packet of biscuits or a £300 food processor — ask yourself one thing: "Would I buy this at full price?" If the answer is no, the deal is not saving you money. It is costing you money on something you did not actually want. A genuine bargain is something you were going to buy anyway, at a price lower than you would normally pay. Everything else is just clever marketing doing its job. Citizens Advice has a useful overview of your shopping rights if you ever feel a deal was genuinely misleading — it is worth knowing where you stand.
Building your deal radar
Spotting genuine deals is not a talent — it is a skill you build through repetition. Browse the leaflets on CatalogFlix each week, not necessarily to buy anything, but to stay familiar with what normal prices look like across different stores. Over time, you will develop an instinct for when a deal is real and when it is window dressing. The expired leaflets archive is particularly handy for this, because it gives you a price history that no single retailer will voluntarily provide. Knowledge is the one advantage shoppers have over pricing teams — and it costs nothing to acquire.