Hiking prices before a 'sale', misleading buy-now claims, confusing unit prices and other online rip-offs to avoid

From misleading prices on subscriptions to confusing online checkouts, Katy Ward looks at five sneaky tricks online retailers use to make us spend more.

Shopping online can be a great way to save time and money if you know what you're doing.

However, there’s a catch. If you’re not careful, you can fall victim to any number of techniques sellers employ to trick us into overspending.

Scarily, the psychology of online pricing is a booming industry, with some large companies investing millions in optimising their website design to encourage us to part with more of our cash.

Here, we look at five of the craftiest tricks – and how you can keep your eye on the ball.

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1. Inflating prices before big sales

If you need to make a big-ticket purchase such as a new laptop, you can save a fortune during special sales events, such as Black Friday or Amazon Prime Day.

In fact, the deals on offer often seem too good to be true – and that’s because they are.

Or to put it another way, the headline figures you see advertised don’t always tell the full story.

In the weeks and months before a global sale such as Black Friday, many companies temporarily inflate prices of items they are planning to put on offer.

Say you see a laptop advertised at £180, having been reduced by 40%. Doing the sums, this would mean that the laptop was £300 immediately prior to the sale.

However, the same laptop may have been sold at a lower price before the sale period – say, £250 a month earlier. The retailer may have temporarily increased the price to make the Black Friday discount appear more generous.

If you’re planning to make a big purchase in an online sale, remember to do your research to check the average selling price for the item you’d like to buy.

This way, you’ll get a sense of how attractive these discounts really are.

More importantly, try to avoid making a major purchase right before a huge sale event. Otherwise, you could end up paying the temporarily inflated price.

2. Unclear layouts at online checkouts

At an online checkout, we naturally expect to see the item we intend to buy prominently displayed at the expected price.

However, confusing layouts can make it easy to accidentally purchase the wrong item or spend more than planned.

For example, a member of the loveMONEY team was recently comparing car insurance quotes online.

After choosing a policy, he found that the deal he had seen advertised on a price comparison site didn’t seem to be available when clicking through to the insurer’s own site.

Instead, the site displayed a range of more expensive policies (see image below).

Only after searching for a few more minutes did he realise he needed to click a small arrow (highlighted in red below) which would reveal the originally advertised policy.

When shopping online, it’s wise to take your time to avoid being tricked into spending more than you’d intended.

This is especially important as you approach the payment stage, where you’re most likely to be upsold.

Also, make sure you aren’t automatically signed up for anything, even marketing emails, through a pre-ticked opt-in box.

3. Buy now or miss out…

An urgency claim is a tactic used to give buyers the impression that they have limited time to grab a bargain.

While urgency claims are perfectly legal, they cannot be false or exaggerated.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) last year issued an open letter to online businesses, reiterating that they cannot use these tactics to mislead shoppers.

But while the CMA is keeping an eye on big-name retailers, it may be a different story for smaller businesses.

For instance, I recently had my eye on a vintage horror movie poster from an independent seller on a large online marketplace. At almost £100, it was more than a little out of my price range.

After adding it to my basket on a Friday without going through to the checkout, I received a notification that it would be 25% off until the following Monday.

Despite being tempted, I decided not to go ahead. By Tuesday, I was back browsing and saw the picture still on sale for a 'limited-time' 25% discount.

Try to avoid feeling pressurised if you see a countdown clock or limited-time offer. Instead, take the time to sit back and consider whether the purchase really makes financial sense – chances are the offer (or something similar) will come around again in the future.

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4. Confusing prices per unit

When we're comparing prices online, retailers often make it difficult for us to determine exactly how much value we're getting for our money.

For instance, a member of the loveMONEY team was comparing vitamin supplements online.

Although he thought that 180 tablets per pack was a good price, the description didn’t make it clear that you’d need to take three tablets per dose.

As with many things, the information about the dosage may have been buried in the fine print, but online retailers often gamble that most people won’t scrutinise these details closely.

The best advice is to check the fine print carefully when you’re buying items such as supplements, so you can understand exactly how long your purchase will last.

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5. Price-per-day on subscriptions and memberships

Many subscription-based services advertise their rates on ‘a-price-per-day’ basis, rather than displaying the total monthly cost.

For example, a gym membership with a fee of £1.29 per day seems much more affordable than one costing £40 per month.

As with any subscription, the value depends on how often you use the service. A pay TV subscription of £9.99 per month offers good value if you watch a film every night but ends up as an unnecessary expense if you go months without streaming.

Remember, it’s a good idea to regularly review all your subscriptions and cancel anything that isn’t offering you bang for your buck.