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Sports Direct could be breaking the law by misleading shoppers into thinking they are getting a good deal, a consumer body has claimed, after it looked at prices of items ranging from trainers to hoodies.
Which? said it had reported the retailer to the Competition and Markets Authority after uncovering what it claimed were “some questionable and dodgy pricing tactics” on its website.
The organisation said it had found products being sold on SportsDirect.com with recommended retail prices (RRPs) “that appear to be misleading”, as its researchers could not find the products sold at that RRP price anywhere else online.
It meant people may be being misled “into thinking they are getting a better deal than they really are”.
A spokesperson said it believed the practices it had uncovered “may be breaking the law”.
Which? said that after being alerted to “suspicious” RRPs by some readers, it examined the pricing of 160 products on the website of the firm, which is part of Frasers Group, the retail empire controlled by Mike Ashley.
The group has a large portfolio of brands under its umbrella, including Jack Wills, Slazenger, Karrimor, Everlast and Lonsdale.
Frasers Group also owns several retailers, including USC, Studio and Get the Label, which sometimes appeared to be the only sellers of these particular brands, said the consumer body.
According to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), shoppers understand the RRP to be the price an item is generally sold at. This meant shoppers might think the Sports Direct price was “a great deal” compared with the “normal” price across the market, said Which? It added that it found examples of products where the researchers could not find any other online retailer selling them at or above the Sports Direct reference price, “leading researchers to question if these were in fact genuine”.
For example, a Jack Wills hoodie was selling for £24 and had a “manufacturer suggested retail price” (MSRP) of £54.99. Which? said MSRP was an obscure term that it believed could be interpreted as being the same as RRP.
Jack Wills is part of Frasers Group, and the researchers could not find that particular hoodie sold or supplied by anyone other than Frasers Group retailers, said Which?. It was £40 on Amazon – supplied by Sports Direct – but all the other retailers were selling it for £24.
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Another example involved a pair of Slazenger men’s tennis shoes selling on SportsDirect.com for £32.99 – nearly half the MSRP of £64.99. Slazenger is also owned by the parent group. Which? said it found the trainers for sale on eight other websites, “but the owner or seller was always part of the parent company”. Seven retailers sold them for either £32.99 or £33. Only one retailer, Slazenger itself, sold them at the MSRP.
ASA rules state that “if a marketer is the only seller of a product, and so has set the price themselves, it is unlikely to be acceptable to refer to the price as an RRP”.
However, Which? said it was unclear whether that applied where the only sellers were members of the same group.
Sports Direct was approached by the Guardian for comment. Which? said the company did not provide it with a comment for publication.
