The Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI) has updated its guidance for traders on pricing practices in light of the changes in the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCCA) as well as other changes to consumer law.
The guide is designed to provide helpful, common-sense guidance to traders about pricing practices. It provides an overview of consumer protection laws that relate to pricing and associated practices for traders.
Regulators may refer to the guidance when making enforcement decisions about a trader's pricing practices. However, the CTSI emphasises that it's not statutory guidance and a court is not bound to accept it. The guidance makes clear that any decision about whether any particular pricing practice is unlawful depends on all relevant circumstances. Only a court can determine whether a trader has breached the law in a specific case.
As well as the DMCCA, the Price Marking Order 2004 requires traders to indicate the price, quantity and unit price of specified products (primarily foodstuffs, but also some non-foods). The Order is due to be amended with substantive effect from 6 April 2026, and the guidance will be further updated in due course to reflect those changes as well.
The guidance includes general dos and don'ts and, among other things, also considers banned practices, best practices for price promotions, the thorny problem of reference pricing, comparisons with competitors' prices, time-limited offers, the use of the word "free" and how to deal with additional charges, whether optional or compulsory.
Presumably, as the CMA has been consulting on drip pricing, the section on additional charges will also need to be updated again once the outcome of that consultation is clear. The updated guide also includes guidance about subscriptions, which may also need tweaking once the UK government publishes the outcome of its consultation about the subscriptions provisions of the DMCCA.
As well as the updated CTSI guidance, when you are looking at pricing, there is useful CMA guidance as well as guidance on the CAP and BCAP Codes.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
