Black Friday pricing claims after the CMA's Wayfair fine

Black Friday falls on Friday 27 November 2026, about six weeks after the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) fined Wayfair £4.8 million for deals that were not as time-limited as they claimed. If you sell online, run paid ads or write sale emails, the Black Friday CMA rules now carry real weight: the CMA can decide a case and fine a business itself, without going to court first.

This guide is for ecommerce owners, marketing managers and the agencies that run their campaigns. It covers what Wayfair did wrong, the law behind the fine and the practical checks to make before your sale, with a checklist near the end.

We checked the case details against the CMA’s own announcements in October 2026. This post explains the rules in plain English, but it is not legal advice: read the CMA’s guidance and speak to a consumer law solicitor if a promotion feels borderline.

Quick Answer: What do the Black Friday CMA rules mean for your 2026 sale?

Every sale claim must be true and provable. Use “was” prices you genuinely charged recently and for longer than the sale, end countdown timers when you say and let prices rise afterwards, include mandatory fees in the headline price, never pre-tick paid extras, and keep the evidence. Under the DMCC Act 2024, the CMA can fine up to 10% of global turnover.

Key Takeaways

• On 14 October 2026 the CMA announced a £4.8 million penalty against Wayfair for “Daily Deals” and “Flash Deals” whose prices often stayed the same or fell after the deadline.
• Since 6 April 2025 the CMA can fine businesses directly, up to 10% of global turnover or £300,000, whichever is higher.
• False limited-time claims and fake reviews are banned outright, and hiding mandatory fees until checkout is unlawful too.
• A “was” price needs evidence: a recent, genuine selling price, charged in the same channel and for longer than the sale.
• Ads, emails, social posts and AI-generated copy are held to the same standard as your product pages.

What did the CMA fine Wayfair for?

The CMA opened its Wayfair investigation on 17 November 2025, one of eight cases in its first wave under the new powers. On 12 October 2026 it gave Wayfair Stores Limited a final infringement notice with a £4,800,000 penalty, and it announced the settlement in a CMA press release on 14 October 2026.

The problem was urgency, not the size of the discounts. Wayfair promoted “Daily Deals” and 24-hour “Flash Deals” with countdown timers and messages such as “Here Today, Gone Tomorrow”. The CMA found that many products stayed at the same price, or went lower, after the deadline, so the time-limited offer was false and shoppers could have felt pushed into buying quickly.

Wayfair admitted breaking the law and settled early, so the penalty includes a 40% reduction, reflecting its agreement to a streamlined procedure and not to appeal. This was a fine under the CMA’s new powers, not a voluntary undertaking. The press release describes refunds only for the other two businesses fined that day.

The other two cases announced the same day

Appliances Direct was fined £1.2 million and ordered to pay around £432,000 in refunds. Customers were automatically opted into paid “Remove & Recycle Your Old Appliance” and “Installation on Delivery” services, and pop-up countdown banners offered £10 to £25 off for a limited time while the same codes kept reappearing for days. Gold’s Gym, a franchise with four London gyms, was fined £45,000 and must refund £9,220 to 726 customers because its joining fee was left out of the total membership price. Hayley Fletcher, the CMA’s Senior Director for Consumer Protection, said: “The time is up for this kind of behaviour.”

Which law applies, and how big can DMCC Act fines be?

The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (the DMCC Act) replaced the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. Its consumer rules came into force on 6 April 2025, and since then the CMA has been able to decide for itself whether a business has broken the law, then fine it and order redress, where before it generally had to go to court. DMCC Act fines can reach 10% of global turnover, or £300,000 if that is higher. The CMA says it has imposed more than £12 million in fines in the first 18 months, and Trading Standards enforce the same rules.

• Banned practices. Schedule 20 lists 32 practices that are unfair in all circumstances, with no need to show their effect on shoppers. They include falsely stating that a product will only be available for a limited time, fake reviews, incentivised reviews presented as independent, and paid promotion that isn’t clearly labelled, such as an influencer post without “#ad”.
• Misleading actions and omissions. A false or deceptive claim, or one that leaves out material information such as the total price, is unlawful if it is likely to change the average shopper’s decision. Drip pricing is caught here rather than on the Schedule 20 list.
• Aggressive practices and professional diligence. Undue pressure, and conduct below honest market practice, can also breach the law.

The CMA’s unfair commercial practices guidance (CMA207) is the best starting point. Ads are also policed by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) under the CAP Code, which requires evidence for objective claims (rule 3.7), prices that include non-optional fees (3.18), honest “up to” and “from” claims (3.22), no false limited-time claims (3.30) and fair price comparisons (3.39).

More change is coming. On 9 August 2026 the government said it would consult this autumn on adding fake “was” prices, invented discounts and misleading recommended retail prices (RRPs) to the banned list. At the time of writing (25 October 2026) we had not found the consultation document, so watch GOV.UK.

How should you set and evidence “was” prices?

A reference price is any higher price you compare against: your own previous price (“was £120, now £79”), a future price, an RRP or a competitor’s price. The DMCC Act sets no fixed number of days. The practical reference pricing rules come from the Chartered Trading Standards Institute’s Guidance for Traders on Pricing Practices (updated for the DMCC Act in April 2026, though not statutory) and the ASA’s advice on promotional savings claims.

Was/now prices

Both say the “was” price should be the last price you charged, it should be recent, and it should have applied for at least as long as the comparison runs. The ASA expects at least three months of pricing history and a significant number of sales at the higher price. The reference price must also be the usual price in the same channel, so a higher in-store price can’t support an online “was” price.

Say a homeware store has sold a floor lamp at £80 since July. “Was £80, now £59” on Black Friday is easy to evidence. Moving it to £110 on 1 November just to show “was £110” three weeks later would be very hard to defend, and it is exactly the kind of inflated price the government wants to ban outright.

RRPs and “after Black Friday” prices

Label an RRP as an RRP, not as your own former price. CAP Code rule 3.39 says RRP comparisons are likely to mislead if the RRP differs significantly from the price the product generally sells for, and a manufacturer’s recommendation is not enough on its own. Future-price claims such as “£129 from 1 December” are a promise: the CTSI guidance says they are likely to be unfair if the price doesn’t then rise as stated, so schedule the change before you advertise it.

When are “up to X% off” and price-match claims safe?

“Up to” and “from” claims

The maximum reduction should apply to a significant proportion of the range. The ASA judges each case on its facts but says less than 10% is unlikely to count, so treat 10% as a floor, not a target. Spread the discounts sensibly: if an electricals retailer advertises “up to 50% off TVs” and only the cheapest small sets are 50% off, the headline is likely to mislead. Products pictured in the ad should carry the saving, and “20% off everything” must not be contradicted by exclusions in the small print.

Price-match and lowest-price promises

The ASA separates a lowest-price claim (“nobody sells it cheaper”) from a price promise (“we’ll match it”), and a promise does not justify a lowest-price claim. Say whether you match or beat, state significant conditions (which retailers count, whether marketplace sellers are excluded), and show the date of any price check a claim relies on. The CTSI guidance also asks you to keep clear records of competitor comparisons.

Are countdown timers and low-stock messages still allowed?

Yes, if they are true. Fake countdown timers are the clearest risk this year, because falsely claiming an offer is time-limited is on the banned list and the CMA doesn’t need to show it changed anyone’s decision. When it launched its pricing drive on 18 November 2025, ten days before Black Friday that year, the CMA described misleading countdown timers as banned. Its guidance also says a genuine deadline is unlikely to be a problem. A compliant timer:

• counts down to one fixed end time that matches the ad, the email and the product page;
• ends the offer at zero, with the price going up rather than the timer resetting or the deal returning under a new name;
• isn’t extended, because the CTSI guidance says to change end dates only for reasons you couldn’t reasonably foresee;
• isn’t one of a string of back-to-back “today only” codes, which the CMA criticised at Appliances Direct.

If you plan to run the same prices through to Cyber Monday on 30 November 2026, say so from the start. Advertising “ends Friday at midnight” and quietly running the deal all weekend is the Wayfair pattern.

Stock messages need the same care. The CMA’s guidance says a pop-up such as “Be quick! We’ve sold 10 in the last 5 mins” can mislead even when literally true, if stock is plentiful. Pull “only 3 left” counters from live inventory and drop “selling fast” labels you can’t prove. If AI conversion rate optimisation agents test your urgency messages, give them a fixed list of approved messages rather than letting them write new ones.

How does the drip pricing ban affect delivery fees and extras?

The drip pricing ban means the first price a shopper sees must include every mandatory charge, such as booking fees, admin fees and unavoidable delivery costs. The CMA’s price transparency guidance (CMA209), published in November 2025, says the total price must appear in the invitation to purchase, including adverts, emails and web pages, where the customer is likely to see it. Gold’s Gym’s joining fee shows how this goes wrong.

Delivery fees

Under CMA209, mandatory delivery charges belong in the total price once they can reasonably be calculated. Optional delivery, such as next-day, can be shown separately but must still be shown, and where shoppers choose between options you should show the cheapest by default. A retail website can comply by showing delivery fees clearly with a running total through checkout. A furniture retailer charging £39 for two-person delivery on every sofa should build that into the price or show it clearly beside the price from the product page onwards. The CMA said on 14 October 2026 that it is reviewing how online retailers disclose delivery fees.

Pre-ticked extras

Paid extras need express consent. The CMA’s guidance on consent for additional charges says you can’t use pre-ticked boxes or automatic opt-ins, and a customer charged without consent is entitled to a refund. That covers warranties, installation, recycling, gift wrapping, insurance and express delivery, and it is where Appliances Direct’s £432,000 refund bill came from.

Do ads and social posts follow the same rules as your landing pages?

Yes. The CMA’s guidance says whoever makes an invitation to purchase is responsible for it, whether a brand, a marketplace seller or an influencer. A Google Shopping ad, a Meta carousel and a sale email are held to the same standard as the product page. Black Friday failures usually sit in the gaps between channels:

• the ad says “50% off” but the landing page says “up to 50% off”;
• a scheduled post or email keeps promoting a deal that has ended;
• a shopping feed keeps a sale price after the website has reverted;
• character limits push a mandatory fee out of the ad price;
• minimum spends, exclusions and end dates appear only on the landing page.

The ASA’s Black Friday tips (October 2023) say significant conditions, including start and end dates, belong in the initial marketing. Our guide on how to create a successful advertising campaign covers the wider planning.

What records should you keep for a Black Friday sale?

If the CMA, Trading Standards or the ASA asks about a claim, you need records made at the time. Keep:

• price history per product and channel for at least three months before the sale, plus sales volumes at the reference price;
• a product-level discount export showing the share of the range at the maximum “up to” saving;
• timer settings and a log of prices after each deadline;
• inventory snapshots behind stock messages, and dated competitor price checks;
• dated copies of every ad, email and social post, plus checkout screenshots;
• who approved each claim, and when.

Keep it well after the sale. The Wayfair investigation opened in November 2025 and was not settled until October 2026.

How should you check ads, emails and AI-generated copy before launch?

AI tools can’t tell whether a price is genuine. The CMA’s guidance on using AI agents, published in March 2026, says you are responsible for what an AI agent does in the same way as for an employee, that price reductions should be genuine, and that a human should stay in the loop. AI drafts also tend to add “lowest price ever” or “selling out fast” whether or not they are true. Use this process:

1. Build a claims register listing every “was” price, percentage, deadline, stock message and price promise next to its evidence.
2. Lock the sale calendar: start and end times, post-sale prices and any Cyber Monday extension.
3. Brief AI tools with the register and tell them not to add urgency, scarcity or superlatives that aren’t in it.
4. Check every line of each ad, email, post and product page against the register, and cut anything you can’t prove.
5. Run test checkouts on mobile and desktop to confirm totals, delivery charges and unticked extras.
6. Match the channels so feeds, ads, emails and landing pages agree, and schedule ads and posts to stop when the sale ends.
7. Sign off, archive and monitor stock, timers and competitor prices during the sale.

Old email flows can keep sending “ends tonight” messages long after a sale, so see our guides to AI agents for email marketing and ecommerce marketing automation tools for adding approval steps. Accurate prices matter for AI shopping assistants too, as covered in getting your store ready for AI shopping.

Your Black Friday CMA rules checklist

Run through this a week before launch and again on the day.

How NSP Global Services Can Help

NSP Global Services can plan and run Black Friday campaigns across PPC, Google Ads and Shopping, email and social, checking ad copy, feeds and landing pages against your pricing evidence before launch. Our content marketing team writes sale copy, including AI-assisted drafts, with a person checking every claim, and our ecommerce SEO service can build a permanent Black Friday landing page that gains authority year after year.

We are a marketing agency, not a law firm, so we flag claims that need legal sign-off rather than giving it ourselves. Contact us to review your Black Friday plan before 27 November.

Conclusion

The Wayfair fine was not about big discounts. It was about deadlines that weren’t real. The Black Friday CMA rules come down to one test: could you prove every price claim today, from records made at the time? If the answer is yes for every “was” price, “up to” headline, timer, delivery charge and AI-written line, you can run a bold sale with confidence.

Start now, not in sale week. When a claim feels borderline, read the CMA’s guidance and ask a solicitor before launch, not after a letter arrives.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much was Wayfair fined by the CMA, and why?

The CMA announced a £4.8 million penalty against Wayfair Stores Limited on 14 October 2026. It found that products sold as “Daily Deals” and 24-hour “Flash Deals”, with countdown timers and “Here Today, Gone Tomorrow” messages, often stayed at the same price or lower after the deadline, so the time-limited offers were false. Wayfair admitted the breach and settled early, which reduced the penalty by 40%.

When is Black Friday 2026 in the UK?

Black Friday 2026 falls on Friday 27 November, the day after US Thanksgiving, and Cyber Monday follows on 30 November. Many UK retailers run offers for a week or more around those dates. That is fine under consumer law as long as the dates you advertise are the real dates, prices genuinely change when the offer ends, and you say upfront if a deal will continue through to Cyber Monday.

How long must a product be at the “was” price before a sale?

UK law sets no fixed number of days. The CTSI pricing guidance says the higher price should be recent, should be the last price you charged and should have applied for at least as long as the comparison runs. The ASA expects at least three months of pricing history and a significant number of sales at the higher price. A price raised in October just so it can be cut in November is very hard to defend.

Are countdown timers illegal in the UK?

No. A countdown timer is lawful if the offer genuinely ends when the timer reaches zero and nothing else about it misleads. What the DMCC Act 2024 bans is falsely claiming an offer is only available for a limited time, for example timers that reset, deals that carry on after the deadline, or the same “limited time” code reappearing day after day. Fake countdown timers of this kind were at the centre of the Wayfair case.

Do I have to include delivery charges in my advertised price?

If delivery is mandatory and the charge can reasonably be calculated, the CMA’s price transparency guidance (CMA209) says it must be included in the total price. Optional delivery, such as next-day, can be shown separately but must still be shown. Retail websites can comply by displaying delivery fees clearly and keeping a running total through checkout. Hiding unavoidable charges until the payment step falls under the drip pricing ban.

Can the CMA fine small businesses, or only big brands?

The CMA can fine any business that breaks consumer law, up to 10% of global turnover or £300,000, whichever is higher. Its October 2026 penalties included £45,000 for Gold’s Gym, a franchise with four London gyms, alongside the multimillion-pound fines for Wayfair and Appliances Direct. Trading Standards and the ASA also act on misleading prices, so smaller retailers should not assume they are below the radar.

Who is responsible if an AI tool writes a misleading Black Friday ad?

You are. The CMA’s guidance on using AI agents, published in March 2026, says a business is responsible for what an AI agent does in the same way it is responsible for an employee, even when a third party supplied the tool. Treat AI copy as a draft: check every price, deadline, stock message and superlative against your evidence before anything goes live, and keep a record of who approved it.

Is it legal to say “up to 70% off” in a Black Friday sale?

Yes, if a significant proportion of the products in the promotion are actually reduced by 70%. The ASA says less than 10% is unlikely to count as significant, and the maximum discounts should be spread across price ranges and brands rather than bunched on the cheapest lines. Products pictured in the ad should carry the advertised saving. Keep a product-level export of discounts as your evidence.