The Price That Never Was: How 'Was' Prices Get Manufactured (and How to Call Their Bluff)

You've seen it a thousand times. A pair of headphones, big red slash through $349.99, now yours for $229.99. Your brain does the math before you can stop it: I'm saving $120! Except here's the uncomfortable question nobody asks in the moment: saving compared to what? Compared to a price the product actually sold at? Or compared to a number somebody typed into a spreadsheet specifically so the slash would look dramatic?

Welcome to price anchoring, the oldest trick in retail — and the single most profitable typo in e-commerce.

The Anchor Drops Before You Do

Price anchoring works because your brain is lazy in a very specific, very exploitable way. Psychologists call it the anchoring effect: the first number you see becomes the reference point for every number after it. Show someone $349.99 first, and $229.99 feels like a gift. Show them $229.99 cold, and suddenly they're wondering if they can find it cheaper.

Retailers know this. It's why the "was" price is printed bigger than your rent is stressful. That crossed-out number isn't information — it's staging. It exists to make the real price feel like a victory.

And here's the kicker: the "was" price often has a very loose relationship with reality. It might be:

• The manufacturer's list price (MSRP) — a number the manufacturer suggested, sometimes years ago, that the product may have never actually sold at for more than a week.
• A brief, strategic price peak — the item sells at $229 for months, ticks up right before a sale event, then "drops" back to $229 with a banner and confetti.
• A different variant's price — the "was" belongs to the bundle with the case and the charger; the "now" is the bare unit.

None of this requires anyone to technically lie. That's the elegant part. MSRP is a real number that a real manufacturer really suggested. It's just not a number anyone was paying.

The Eternal Sale Is Not a Sale

There's a category of product that is always on sale. Always. It was "30% off" in January, "30% off" in April, and it will be "30% off" during the holidays, at which point the banner will call it a doorbuster. If a discount never ends, it isn't a discount — it's the price. The "was" number is a fictional character, like Santa Claus or a phone battery that lasts all day.

Regulators have noticed. The FTC's rules on former-price comparisons say a "was" price is only legitimate if the item actually sold at that price in the recent, regular course of business. Lawsuits over fictitious pricing have hit major retailers over the years. But enforcement moves at the speed of paperwork, and banners move at the speed of JavaScript. In practice, protecting your wallet is a self-service operation.

Calling the Bluff in Ninety Seconds

The good news: the counter-move is stupidly simple, and it doesn't require trusting anyone's banner — including ours.

Check the price history. Free tools like CamelCamelCamel and Keepa chart what an Amazon product has actually sold for over months and years. One glance at the chart answers the only question that matters: is today's price genuinely low for this product, or is it Tuesday's price wearing a party hat? If the line has been flat at the "sale" price since spring, congratulations — you've just watched a magician's sleeve fall open.

Compare against the average, not the anchor. The number to beat isn't the crossed-out MSRP. It's what the product typically sold for over the last few months. A "50% off MSRP" deal that's 3% below its recent average is a shrug in a trench coat.

Watch for the pre-sale ramp. If the price history shows a suspicious climb in the weeks before a big shopping event, followed by a heroic "discount" back to normal, you've caught the oldest play in the book. It's the retail equivalent of stepping back to take credit for someone else's work.

Ignore the percentage entirely. "70% off" is an emotion, not a fact. The only numbers that matter are the price today, the price it usually is, and whether the gap between them is worth your money.

Shop Current Deals

This is, not coincidentally, exactly how we operate. We track live prices against each product's 90-day Amazon average, so you can tell a real discount from a banner. Browse today's deals →

The anchor only works if you let it drop first. Check the chart, beat the average, and let the crossed-out number stay what it always was: decoration.