We launched TrendCompare today (a price tracker for Pakistan's fashion e-commerce), but this post isn't about the launch it's about what the data taught us, because I think it applies to e-commerce everywhere.
We record the price of every product across 22 fashion brands, every hour. Six months of history, ~150K price-change records. Three things surprised us:
1. The "original price" is a creative writing exercise. 1 in every 17 sale listings advertises an original price more than TRIPLE the actual selling price. The pattern is always the same: quietly raise the anchor price 3 7 days before a sale event, then "discount" it back.
2. Real discounts are actually common which is what makes fakes work. The average genuine discount is 41%. Shoppers see enough real deals to trust the banner, and that trust is exactly what the inflated anchors exploit.
