The ACCC says a comparison price must have applied for a “reasonable period”. It has never said how long that is. No one publishes a number, so we are measuring one.
878 Australian Shopify stores under observation · updated August 2026
The ACCC's guidance says a was/now claim can mislead where the items "were not sold at that price for a reasonable period right before the sale", and that where an item runs at a sale price "for an extended period of time, it may be misleading to call it a sale, as the price has effectively become the new selling price". It does not say how long a reasonable period is, and it does not say when extended begins.
That is deliberate. The test is qualitative and depends on the product, the category and the buying cycle — a mattress and a punnet of strawberries do not have the same reasonable period. Every Australian law firm writing on this says the same thing: there is no universal number.
The measurement is running; the answer is not ready.
878 Australian stores are scanned, 862 of them more than once. But the gap between the first and most recent snapshot is still only 2 days, and a distribution built on that window would measure how often we scan rather than how long Australian discounts stand.
So there is no table here yet. It publishes once the observation window reaches 14 days across at least 100 products, which on the current schedule is well before the November sale period. We would rather show nothing than show a number that is really a description of our own scan interval.
A duration in the long tail is not proof of anything. It is a prompt to check one thing: can you still show what the product sold for at the higher price, and when? If the answer is yes, a long discount is defensible. If the answer is no, the discount is doing the work of a normal price and the strikethrough is decoration.
In June 2026 an online ugg retailer paid $39,600 over strikethrough prices the products had not been sold at. Later that month another online retailer paid $79,200, partly over strikethrough prices it had not charged since at least 1 January 2025 — that is roughly eighteen months of a standing "was" price. In May 2026 the Federal Court found Coles misled customers on 13 of 14 sample "Down Down" tickets.
Shopify stores the current compare-at price and nothing about when it was set. There is no price history in the admin, so the one question that matters — how long has this been up — is the one question the platform cannot answer. That is why this had to be measured from outside.
There is no fixed limit in the Australian Consumer Law. The ACCC's test is whether the item genuinely sold at that price for a reasonable period beforehand, and whether the sale has run so long that the sale price has effectively become the normal price. What matters is whether you can evidence the higher price, not the number of days.
The ACCC does not define it numerically. It varies by product and buying cycle. Its guidance instead asks whether the item was actually sold at the higher price for a reasonable period immediately before the sale, and whether more than a very small proportion of sales occurred at that price.
Not automatically. The risk is that a sale price which never ends stops being a sale at all, at which point continuing to display a struck-through 'was' price alongside it may mislead, because the ACCC's position is that the price has effectively become the new selling price.
Enough to show the product actually sold at the higher price, and when. Order history at the higher price, and the dates the price changed. The ACCC has published no prescribed record-keeping period for this, so keep what would answer a question about the specific claim you made.
The ACCC's guidance identifies comparing against a recommended retail price the product was never sold at, or was not sold at for a reasonable period, as a way a comparison claim can mislead.
Can you say 'sitewide sale' in Australia? · Are countdown timers illegal in Australia? · ACCC Black Friday pricing rules · The eight-point pricing checklist · What must a furniture listing say about anchoring?
Every figure on this page traces to one of these. If any of it is
wrong, tell us and we will correct it.
ACCC — price displays guidance ·
ACCC — pricing for business ·
ACCC — sitewide claim penalties, June 2025 ·
ACCC — Black Friday sweep findings, April 2026 ·
ACCC — strikethrough pricing penalties, June 2026 ·
ACCC — 2026-27 enforcement priorities