§4.3 Progressive price reductions
Article 6a 5. Member States may provide that, when the price reduction is progressively increased, the prior price is the price without the price reduction before the first application of the price reduction; The regulatory choice provided in paragraph 5 of Article 6a applies when the price is gradually reduced, without interruptions, during the same sales campaign. In this case, the ‘prior’ price is the lowest price during the 30 days before the application of the first price reduction announcement and it remains the ‘prior’ price for all subsequent price reduction announcements during the sales campaign. — For example, the lowest price of the good for the last 30 days before the sales campaign started was EUR 100. The seller indicates EUR 100 as its ‘prior’ price when it announces the first price reduction (e.g. 10 % off) and can then keep the same ‘prior’ price also when announcing the following 20 % and 30 % reductions. The situation is different in the case of successive sales campaigns during a 30-day period (e.g. in promotions such as ‘20 % off every Sunday in December’ or during successive ‘Singles day’, ‘Black Friday’, ‘Cyber Monday’ or Christmas sales campaigns in November/December). In the context of such successive sales campaigns, where the price is increased in intermittent (short) periods, the general rule of Article 6a applies and the ‘prior’ price for each successive price reduction is the lowest price during at least the past 30 days, i.e. including the reduced price during the previous promotions. To avoid a circumvention of paragraphs 1 and 2 of Article 6a, paragraph 5 shall be interpreted narrowly. Accordingly, it is only applicable when the price is reduced progressively, without interruptions and without increasing the indicated ‘prior’ price in the course of the continuous price reduction.
Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-09-07