How to tell a real discount from a marked-up sale

A shop that shows "was 160, now 96" is telling you about its own past pricing. That is usually true, and it is almost never the number you need, because it compares the shop to itself. To know whether 96 is good, compare it with what every other shop charges for the same product right now.

The gap can be large. A forty per cent cut from a high starting price can still be above a neighbouring shop's ordinary, undiscounted price. A small ten per cent off an already low price can be the lowest figure anywhere. The percentage tells you less than any other number on the page.

A discount is a claim about one shop's history. A price is a fact about the market.

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The lowest price on a product is very often a shop clearing the last two or three sizes of a colourway. The figure looks very low next to what most shops charge, but you only get it in the sizes that are left. That is worse for a reseller than for a consumer. You are buying to sell, and the sizes cleared last are the sizes that sell slowest.

So the first thing to ask about a cheap listing is how many sizes it has, and which ones. A full size run at a moderate discount is a sourcing opportunity. Two odd sizes at a steep discount are usually another shop's leftovers, priced low for a reason.

• A price well below what most shops charge, with a full size run. This combination is rare. It means a shop is clearing a colourway early, not late. It is the one to act on quickly.
• The same model cheap at several shops at once. This is usually a season change, not a one-off. It will get cheaper before it disappears, and resale prices are about to soften too.
• A single outlier far below everyone else. Check it carefully. Real clearance and a listing error look identical until you read the size list and the check date.

The signal to ignore is a large percentage with no context. If you don't know what other shops charge, it tells you nothing.

For all of this you need to see many retailers at once, not one product page at a time. Retail comparison sites do that job. A page of price drops across European shops lets you judge a percentage. You can see what most shops charge, the outliers, and the sizes each shop still has.

Build one habit: never judge a discount alone. Open the product and look at what the other shops charge. Only then decide whether the crossed-out number means anything.

Once you believe the price, do the sums. Count the landed cost including shipping and duty, the platform fee on the marketplace you will sell on, payment processing and your VAT treatment. Add the realistic time to sell in that size. A good buy still makes money after those sums. A discount that only looks good often does not.

If you source regularly, keep the calculation in the same place as your inventory. Don't leave it in a spreadsheet you update when you remember. Repricing and payout data only help if the number you started from was real.