Canada has implemented a new tax savings from December to February for some things like taxable groceries, crafts, and gaming physical media. I wanted to get a new Xbox controller and found the best price at Walmart for $55 a week ago. The tax holiday starts today and I now see that the $55 has increased to $62 and change, which is about how much tax I should be saving. Great to see this thinly veiled attempt to help Canadians ( /s - win votes) is just going to be extra profit in the corporations’ pockets.
That’s probably illegal.
It is in the US.
The FTC’s Guides Against Deceptive Pricing generally require that a seller offer an item at a price for a reasonable, substantial period of time in good faith, and in the regular course of business, before advertising that price as the former or regular price (16 C.F.R. § 233.1). The FTC considers it deceptive to offer an item for sale at a higher price for a short period of time in order to support a claim that an item is discounted when the price is then lowered. This practice is prohibited.
Additionally, most states have consumer protection statutes that prohibit sellers from making false or misleading statements of fact concerning the reasons for, existence of, or amount of a price reduction (for example, Cal. Civ. Code § 1770(a)(13)). Several states also expressly regulate the length of time an item must be offered at a regular price and amount of time it is on sale (for more information, see Practice Notes, Promotional Pricing: Specific State Laws and “Up To” Discounting Law and Practice: Promotional Pricing: State-by-State Requirements).
From here
The price hike in Canada’s instance, wouldn’t violate US law.
They aren’t advertising a “sale”. You just aren’t paying taxes on what you buy, and it isn’t wal mart doing it, it’s the government. Wal mart is just choosing to screw over the buyers and the government all in one go.
tell that to amazon and every other retailer that jacks prices up the week or so before a ‘sale’
For Amazon, I use camelcamelcamel to see price history. Personally I’ve not seen price increases just for holiday sales but I also don’t buy a lot of stuff on these sorts of days, I just set a price alert and wait for the email.
