Attracting consumers by advertising sale items is a normal situation in a market economy where competition between retailers is fierce. However, the thirst for profit can lead merchants to cheat. Indeed, some retailers may tend to regularly advertise the same sale items. In other words, they advertise false sales.
This deceptive business practice is not new. In fact, it is regulated by most governments in economically advanced countries for two main reasons. Firstly, it harms competition, since dishonest competitors attract consumers to the detriment of honest traders. Secondly, it harms consumers, who tend to store less when an item is advertised as being on sale, even if the sale is false. Advertising false sales is so damaging to the economy that the practice has been deemed criminal in Canada.
Based on data collected every two weeks over a one-year period in 16 stores in the Montreal and Ottawa areas, we have identified a number of commercial practices that we believe to be deceptive. Advertising the same items on sale for very long periods of time was the practice most frequently identified by
our data collection. The laws that protect Canadians deserve to be enforced more rigorously by the authorities.
