Why Black Friday sales aren't what they seem.
How to know you're actually getting a good deal, before the countdown starts.
A Black Friday discount is only as honest as the price it starts from. On 14 May 2026 the Federal Court found that Coles misled shoppers with 13 of 14 sample "Down Down" tickets, because the products had not been sold at the "was" price for a reasonable period first, and treated twelve weeks as the benchmark. Before you buy this Black Friday, check the price history, ask how long the "was" price applied, read the "up to" and the exclusions, ignore the countdown, and compare the product rather than the percentage. BATCHA does not run sales: its price holds year round, and this Black Friday it is running the No Sale Sale.
Black Friday lands on Friday 27 November this year. You already know what is coming: the emails, the countdown timers, the banners promising up to 70% off. What none of them tell you is the one thing you need to know to judge a discount. Seventy per cent off what?
This post is about that question. What a discount actually measures, what the Federal Court found when it looked closely at one of the biggest discount campaigns in the country, and how to tell a real deal from a well-produced one before you pay.
A discount is only as honest as the price it starts from.
A percentage needs a starting point. "40% off" means nothing until you know the price it was taken from, and whether anyone actually paid that price.
Here is the test worth carrying into November. If a business can take 40% off the same product every Black Friday, like clockwork, and still be in business in December, then the other eleven months were never the real price. They were the price set to be discounted from.
You've seen how it works. The price goes up in October so it can come down in November. The sale ends Sunday and starts again Monday. The discount is not a gift. It is a timetable, and it is built into what you pay the rest of the year.
What the Federal Court found about "Down Down".
This is not a theory. On 14 May 2026, the Federal Court of Australia found that Coles misled shoppers with its "Down Down" discount tickets.
The ACCC's case was that Coles raised the prices of hundreds of everyday products by at least 15% for a short period, then put them on "Down Down" tickets at a price equal to or higher than where they started. Justice O'Bryan found that 13 of the 14 sample tickets examined were misleading, because the products had not been sold at the "was" price for a reasonable period before the discount was advertised.
The detail is the useful part. Coles' own internal rules required four weeks at the higher price before a product could be discounted. The court found that twelve weeks would have been needed for the "was" price to mean what shoppers took it to mean. As at publication, penalties have not been decided.
The ACCC brought a similar case against Woolworths over its "Prices Dropped" promotion. Woolworths disputes it. The case was heard in April 2026 and the court has not yet delivered its judgment.
Those were tickets on paper towels and yoghurt, where the difference is a few dollars. Now picture the same arithmetic on a $3,999 sofa.
Black Friday runs on the same arithmetic, at a bigger number.
When the ACCC swept Black Friday advertising in 2024, it found the same patterns again and again: "was" and "now" prices where the "was" figure needed checking, recommended retail prices used as the starting point with no recent sales at that price, "up to" discounts where very few products got the headline figure, and "sitewide" sales with long lists of exclusions.
And the countdown timer is not always counting down to anything. In a case the ACCC won against a bedding retailer, a sale countdown timer simply reset itself when it ran out.
None of this needs anyone to tell a lie in a single sentence. It works because a percentage, a crossed-out price and a clock add up to a feeling, and the feeling is what gets sold.
How to know you are actually getting a good deal.
Six checks, and none of them take long.
1. Check the price before the sale starts.
Look up the product now, in October, and note the price. Screenshot it. A price tracker or a browser extension will show you the history. If the price climbs in the weeks before Black Friday, the discount is coming off a number built for the occasion.
2. Ask what the "was" price was, and for how long.
A genuine "was" price is one the product actually sold at, for a meaningful stretch of time. The Federal Court's twelve weeks is a useful yardstick. If the "was" price only existed for a few weeks, it is a stage prop.
3. Read the "up to".
"Up to 70% off" usually means a handful of items at 70% and most of the range at much less. Check the discount on the thing you actually want.
4. Read the exclusions on anything "sitewide".
Sitewide should mean the whole site. Scroll to the small print before you build a cart around it.
5. Ignore the clock.
A countdown is designed to stop you comparing. If the deal is genuine, it will survive ten minutes of checking. If it disappears in those ten minutes, it was a price, not a deal.
6. Compare the product, not the percentage.
Put the specification side by side: the frame, the materials, the warranty, the returns window. A bigger percentage off a weaker product is not a better deal. It is a better advertisement.
Why BATCHA does not run sales.
You do not have to take part in any of this.
BATCHA exists to give Australians that choice. There are no sales, no seasonal events, and no inflated "was" prices. The price is the honest price, and it holds year round. Nothing is lifted in October, because there is nothing waiting to come down in November.
The price is lower for a different reason. BATCHA removes the layers between the factory and you: the middlemen, the warehousing, the speculative stock, and the unsold inventory. That removes up to 68% of the retail markup. The products come from the same factories that supply major retailers, every supplier is vetted in person, and you pay for the product without losing out on the quality you see in a showroom.
That is the whole trick, and it is not a trick. When you take out the costs a sale is designed to hide, there is nothing left to put on sale.
This Black Friday: the No Sale Sale.
While everyone else counts down, BATCHA is running the No Sale Sale.
Nothing will be marked down, because nothing was marked up. The price you see on 27 November will be the price you saw in October, and the price you will see in February. No countdown, no "up to", no small print.
More on the No Sale Sale soon. Until then, the current batch is priced the way every BATCHA price is: once, honestly, with nothing held back for a sale. Every order is covered by the BATCHA Guarantee.
Sources.
- ACCC, Court finds that Coles misled customers over "Down Down" claims, 14 May 2026.
- ABC News, Coles found to have misled shoppers on discounted items, 14 May 2026.
- ABC News, The ACCC's case against Woolworths, 30 April 2026.
- ACCC, ACCC sweep finds concerning Black Friday "sales" advertising, 17 December 2024.
- ACCC, Bedding supplier to pay $15m in penalties for misleading statements about sale prices.