Guide
How we check a "was" price
Last updated 26 September 2026
Every deal site, including this one, starts from the same raw material: a retailer's claim that something is discounted. The difference is what happens next. A "was" price printed on a catalogue or product page is a claim, not a fact — and it's a claim the retailer has every incentive to set as high as the rules allow.
Why a printed "was" price isn't enough on its own
In Australia, the ACCC's guidance on discount claims, and in New Zealand the Fair Trading Act, both require that a "was" price reflect a price the item was genuinely offered at for a reasonable period beforehand — not a price invented specifically to make a "sale" look bigger. Most retailers comply. Some set the reference price at the top of a normal range and hold a "sale" against it almost permanently. Both can be legal; neither tells you whether today's price is actually good.
What this board does today
Every product on the board comes from a live eBay Australia listing, refreshed twice a day. Before a listing is shown, it has to pass a few automatic checks:
- The claimed discount is 70% or less. Above that, the "was" price is almost always an inflated recommended price rather than something the item really sold for.
- The item is brand new: damaged-box, open-box, refurbished and pre-order listings are dropped.
- The seller has at least 98% positive feedback and 100 or more ratings.
What we don't do yet is compare the "was" price against our own record of what the item has sold for. That price tracker is being built; until it has enough history, the discount you see is the seller's own claim, filtered but not independently verified, and we won't call anything "verified" until it is.
None of this is perfect. Prices move, stock varies by region, and a good deal from this morning can be gone by the time you click through, so always confirm the price on the listing itself.
What this doesn't catch
Filtering catches the most obvious inflated reference prices. It doesn't catch a genuinely underwhelming product being discounted, a shipping cost that eats the saving, or a retailer quietly limiting stock to one unit per customer at the sale price. Read the fine print on the retailer's own page before buying — a listing here is a starting point for research, not a substitute for it.
For the specific red flags to look for on any individual deal, see 5 signs a "discount" isn't real. To see what's live right now, browse the full deals board.