When ChannelNews gave the Australian Retailers Association (ARA) the opportunity to comment on ACCC claims of dodgy Black Friday pricing, we thought their response would be prompt and thunderous. Something along the lines of “How dare they! We are clean as the driven snow!”

We were wrong.

On Tuesday morning the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) released a statement about retailers and Black Friday.

The ACCC said it had “conducted a sweep of sales advertising by Australian businesses online and in store and is concerned that a number of claims about the size and scope of discounts may be misleading consumers”.

It said Australian consumers had raised concerns with the ACCC “about the practice of was/now pricing practices, particularly when consumers report that prices increase ahead of any major sale period”. 

Black Friday sale – Google image search.

“This follows consumer reports about a range of concerns during the recent Black Friday sales period about the veracity of stated discounts,” the ACCC said.

Was/now pricing is the practice of raising prices before a sale and then basing percentage discounts on the all-new price, thus creating an illusory effect of the real saving.

ACCC Deputy Chair Catriona Lowe said that among the practices it had uncovered were “site wide discounts that are not in fact site wide”.

“We are further considering some of these examples for investigation and action, and the ACCC has already asked a number of retailers to justify their advertising claims. In the meantime, we are warning retailers ahead of post-Christmas sales that they must comply with Australian Consumer Law in all the claims they make.”

At 10:08am Tuesday, shortly after the ACCC statement about retailers and Black Friday was posted, an “urgent” email was sent to the ARA seeking comment. A link to the ACCC statement was supplied. 

A section of the ACCC’s Black Friday pricing statement.

 

Our email was followed up with a phone call, which went to voicemail. We left a message.

Four hours later we received an email response, asking for specific questions.

An hour later we sent three questions:

  1. Is the ARA aware of this type of misleading advertising?
  2. What is the ARA’s advice for retailers in this regard?
  3. What is the ARA’s response to the ACCC’s statement?

On Wednesday at 10:57am, more than 24 hours after the initial request for comment, we texted the ARA to ask for an update.

We were told a spokesperson had been on and off planes and it was a “bit tough” to extract a comment in that situation. Well, of course. 

“Most likely EOD, sorry for delay!”

EOD came and went, and no response.

Come Thursday morning we emailed the ARA again saying we were going to write and publish a story. At the time of publication there had been no response.

The ARA has been around in various forms for more than a century. It says 95 per cent of its members are small to medium sized business.