The was-price audit
Every advertised "was" price on the 10,782 in-stock listings we track, checked against what other sellers ask for the same bottle today and against the seller's own recorded prices. Computed Sep 4, 2026, recomputed nightly.
22.6%
of in-stock listings advertise a was price
2,439 of 10,782; median claimed discount 21%
91.8%
of those exceed every other seller's current price for the same bottle
379 listings on bottles another tracked seller carries
99.3%
were never asked by that seller in our record
1,789 listings tracked 28+ days
By store
| Store | Listings | With a was price | Median claimed discount | Was above every other seller | Seller never asked it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Perfumania | 1,758 | 94.1%n=1,654 | 17% | 94.5%n=164 | 99.7%n=1,624 |
| eCosmetics | 370 | 55.4%n=205 | 21% | 92.9%n=42 | - |
| Maple Prime | 1,043 | 39.6%n=413 | 34% | 92.5%n=134 | - |
| Olfactory Factory LLC | 1,395 | 11.5%n=161 | 45% | 78.9%n=38 | 96.2%n=159 |
| Venba Fragrance | 1,996 | 0.3%n=6 | - | - | - |
| FragranceNet | 3,514 | 0%n=0 | - | - | - |
| Intense Oud | 706 | 0%n=0 | - | - | - |
A blank means fewer than 20 listings could be tested for that store, not a clean score. Stores that state no reference price have nothing to test and nothing to fail; that is not the same as being cheaper, which the discounter price index measures directly.
What this means when you shop
- Is a fragrance discounter's "was" price a real price?
- Rarely a price anyone is asking. Of the 10,782 in-stock listings we track, 22.6% advertise a "was" price, with a median claimed discount of 21%. Where another tracked seller carries the identical bottle, 91.8% of those "was" prices are higher than every other seller's current price (379 tested). Where we have tracked the listing for 28 days or more, 99.3% were never asked by that seller in our record (1,789 tested). The "was" price is, in practice, the manufacturer's list price, not a price the store charged.
- So is the discount fake?
- The saving against list price is usually true; the list price is just not what anyone pays. That makes "35% off" a poor guide to whether a bottle is cheap. The useful comparison is against what other sellers charge for the same bottle today, which is what every fragrance page on this site shows, and against the seller's own recent prices, which the price-history chart and the "good price" verdict on each listing measure.
- Which stores rely most on strikethrough prices?
- By share of listings carrying a "was" price: Perfumania 94.1%, eCosmetics 55.4%, Maple Prime 39.6%. Venba Fragrance, FragranceNet, Intense Oud advertise essentially none. A store with no strikethrough is not cheaper for it, and a store with a lot of it is not dearer; the discounter price index on this site measures actual prices against the market, which is the fair test.
Method: every live, in-stock listing with a price, as the retailers' authorized feeds state it. A listing has a "was" price when the feed gives a reference above the asking price. Market test, on bottles at least one other tracked seller carries at the identical size: the reference exceeds every other seller's current asking price. History test, on listings we have tracked for 28 days or more: the highest price we ever recorded that seller asking for the listing is below 98% of the reference. Neither test proves a reference false; a seller may have charged it before we watched. Both measure whether a shopper can find evidence for it. References more than 4x the asking price are additionally refused on every page of this site.
The numbers as JSON: /data/discount-plausibility.json, free to reuse with attribution and the date (CC BY 4.0). Related: how we track prices, the August study that first counted implausible strikethroughs, the September discounter price index, and every open dataset.