Your Black Friday 'Was' Price Has a New Reader

Bike Barn sold nearly 6,000 bikes over two years. Only 30 went at the "full" price. The rest went at the "50% off" price, which, it turns out, was just the price. That cost them $800,000 in the Auckland District Court in 2017.

Black Friday is the month NZ retailers write the most "was" prices. This year there is a new reader.

On 9 October Shopify started sending your compare-at price to AI shopping agents.

Whatever number sits in that field, an agent can now quote it to a shopper as a genuine saving.

Theres a question and a answer in there, this then that.

If a agent tells a customer a price, that came from your website… Whos right, and whos checking?

What counts as a real "was" price

The Commerce Commission's guidance is short. A "was", "usual", "normal" or "everyday" price is a promise that you actually charged it. You are likely to mislead if:

• you never charged the "usual" price
• you inflated it to make the discount look bigger
• it is one of many prices you commonly sell at
• it is out of date, or was very rarely the real selling price

And the one that catches most online stores: if you routinely sell at the promotional price, the promotional price becomes your usual price. Permanent sale means no sale.

ComCom also says a "sale" is a brief and limited chance to buy at a reduced price, and "clearance" is only for clearing goods. An RRP you never charge is not a usual price either.

Note what NZ does not give you: a number. ComCom's pricing guidance for businesses and consumers sets no minimum number of days or weeks a "was" price must have been charged. [Chris: confirm no NZ court has set a period; I found none] The test is the overall impression on an ordinary shopper. Volume matters too. Bike Barn's 30 out of 6,000 is the kind of maths ComCom does.

The cases

The point of these is not the fine. It is what ComCom looked at.

• Bike Barn, 2017. $800,000 across 16 representative charges for July 2013 to June 2015. Typically "50% off" from a price almost nobody paid, plus "clearance" and "final days" wording when the same prices ran before and after.
• Kathmandu, 2006. Fined $28,000 plus costs, $4,000 on each of seven charges, for "up to 50 to 60% off" during three 2004 sales. The Astra jacket was "on sale" at $79.95 for Easter, but had been that price from 29 January to 23 August 2004.
• Progressive Enterprises, the then owner of Countdown, warned in March 2012 for "at least 20%" off beer. A 12 pack of NZ Pure had not sold at its standard shelf price, or close to it, for eight months.
• CityFitness, June 2026. $1.12m for advertising membership prices that did not exist once a compulsory 3% fee applied. Not a was/now case, but it is the current benchmark for what an invented price costs.
• Noel Leeming, charged July 2025 over its "Price Promise". ComCom's line: fine print should not contradict advertising claims. ComCom's case register still lists the 18 charges as open, and Noel Leeming says it will defend them. [check case register for any outcome before publishing]

The penalty ceiling is moving. Today it is up to $600,000 per charge for a company. The Fair Trading Amendment Bill would lift that to the greater of $5m, three times the gain, or the value of the transactions, and move most breaches to civil liability. The select committee reported it back on 25 September 2026 and it was still waiting on its second reading in mid-October. The new penalties start six months after Royal assent. [update Bill stage before publishing]

The new reader

Shopify's changelog, 9 October 2026: "Shopify now shares your compare-at price with AI shopping agents through Shopify Catalog, so AI agents can see when a product is marked down." Before that, agents reading Catalog only saw the current price.

There is a switch in admin, under Sales channels, Agentic, Shopify Catalog, in the "Compare-at" section. Shopify turns it on by default for most stores, and off for stores it thinks use compare-at for an MSRP or other reference price. When it is on, Catalog sends the compare-at price whenever it is higher than the current price, and agents may show it as a strikethrough with a percentage badge. Shopify says Catalog feeds both Shop and its agentic storefronts. [unverified: whether the Shop MCP tool returns this same field]

Think about what that field has been on most Shopify stores. A number someone typed once, years ago, to make a strikethrough look good. Never charged. Never updated. Fine for a theme nobody audits. Now it is structured data an agent can read, summarise and repeat: "Down from $129, now $79." [example figures]

The agent does not know your price history. It does not know the $129 ran for one weekend in 2023. It just reads the field.

And the agent is not the one making the representation. You are. The Fair Trading Act cares about conduct in trade that is liable to mislead, and the price came from your store. I am not aware of any NZ case on an agent repeating a merchant's claim, so treat that as untested, not safe. [unverified: no ComCom decision or guidance found on agents repeating merchant prices; its AI paper could not be retrieved]

Context matters here. Most agent shopping channels are still US-only, though a Shop MCP test reached an NZD checkout with NZ shipping this month. So this is less a Black Friday 2026 emergency and more a field you should clean before it gets read at scale.

What to do before November

• Export every product with a compare-at price. Check each one against what you actually charged, and for how long.
• If you cannot show you sold at that price for a real period recently, clear the field. Not just for Black Friday. For good.
• Watch for the permanent-sale trap: a compare-at price that has sat there all year is evidence against you.
• Decide on the agent toggle on purpose. If your compare-at data is a mess, switch it off until it is not.
• Keep the records. Price history is your defence, eg. a dated log of selling prices and units sold.
• Kill "RRP" comparisons unless it is a real recommended price and you say so.

Across the ditch

In May 2026 the Federal Court found Coles' "Down Down" tickets misleading in 13 of 14 samples, because the "was" price had not been charged for a reasonable period. Justice O'Bryan held twelve weeks would have been enough in that context, partly because Coles' own policy said so. Penalties are still to be set. Judgment in the ACCC's similar case against Woolworths over "Prices Dropped" is reserved. [recheck both before publishing] If you sell into AU, twelve weeks is the safest working figure. It is a grocery ruling, not a law.

So What.

Your compare-at field used to be decoration. Now it is a claim a machine can repeat to a shopper, with your name on it. Clean it before Black Friday, or switch it off. The cheapest fix is a true number.

Shoutouts

• Commerce Commission, for pricing guidance short enough to read in five minutes.
• Shopify, for putting the compare-at toggle in plain sight. Use it.
• Justice O'Bryan, for finally putting a number on "reasonable period".