§4.2 ‘New arrivals’ goods

Article 6a 4. Where the product has been on the market for less than 30 days, Member States may also provide for a shorter period of time than the period specified in paragraph 2. The option provided in paragraph 4 of Article 6a enables Member States to allow price reduction announcements also in respect of goods (‘new arrivals’) that the trader has been selling for less than 30 days before announcing the price reduction. The option is formulated broadly and refers to ‘a shorter period of time’ (than the default period of at least 30 days). Unlike the regulatory choice regarding goods which are liable to deteriorate or expire rapidly, for which Member States can provide ‘different rules’, including the exemption of such goods from the scope of Article 6a, this regulatory choice only refers to ‘a shorter period of time’. Accordingly, it cannot not be interpreted as including also the possibility of complete exemption of these goods from the requirement to observe a reference period for establishing the ‘prior’ price. Therefore, where Member States choose to apply this possibility to derogate from the general rule, they must set out a specific period of time for the determination of the ‘prior’ price, or, alternatively, allow traders to determine the period of time by themselves and to indicate this period along with the corresponding ‘prior’ price. In this latter scenario, where the specific reference period is not established by the national rules, the fairness of price reduction announcements for the goods in question will continue to be assessed on case-by-case basis under the UCPD. The notion of being on the ‘market’ needs to be interpreted in the context of the general rule set out in the first and second paragraph of Article 6a, which refer to the actions of the specific trader who announces the price reduction. Therefore, ‘market’ in this context refers to the selling of the goods by the given trader, as defined by Article 2(d) of the PID. Goods should be considered as having already been on the ‘market’ where the seller resumes the offer of the same goods after a period of interruption, e.g. after the goods were temporarily out of stock or in case of seasonal goods, such as winter/summer clothes. In that case, since such goods would not be, strictly speaking, new arrivals, the exception provided for in Article 6a(4) would not apply. However, in these situations, the trader can choose, as a reference period for setting the ‘prior’ price, a longer period of time during which the good was offered for sale for a total of at least 30 days. Therefore, where the seller offers again a good for sale after a period of interruption, the seller can announce a price reduction indicating as the ‘prior’ price the lowest price applied in the reference period before the interruption (for example, in the past year) provided that: — the good has been offered for sale for a total at least for 30 days during that reference period; and — the ‘prior’ price indicated is the lowest price in the whole reference period. Subject to a case-by-case assessment, the trader may be required, in accordance with Article 7 of the UCPD, to inform the consumer when the indicated ‘prior’ price is a price that was applied not in the period immediately preceding the price reduction but e.g. in the previous season.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-09-07