Real deal or fake? How to check a sale price

A big “was” price and a red sale sticker do not always mean a saving. Sometimes the price went up a few days before the sale, so the “sale” only brings it back to where it was. theDeals.co.za records the prices of 659,569 products from 61 South African online shops every day, so we can see the difference. This page shows what we found and how you can check any deal yourself before Black Friday (27 November), Cyber Monday and the November sales.

What we found

Since we started recording on 18 September 2026, up to 17 October 2026:

• 5,052 products had their price raised and then shown as a sale, with a “was” price at or above the raised price. In 4,774 of them the sale price was the same as, or higher than, the price before the rise: no real saving at all.
• 4,409 more went up and came back down again without a “was” price (a price see-saw).
• 24,154 showed a “was” price at least 10% above today’s price that we never saw the shop charge.
• 278 were real drops: today’s price is clearly below the price we usually recorded, and the higher price was charged before.

For the raised-then-“cut” products, the typical rise was 27%, and the higher price was on show for about 3 days before the “sale”. Most of them were in Headphones & earphones, Vacuums & floor care and Chargers, mounts & more.

The three patterns, with real examples

1. Raised, then “cut”

The price goes up, stays up for a few days, then comes back down with the higher price shown as the “was” price. The “discount” is real only against the raised price.

• Vacuums & floor care: R6,999 on 22 Sep. On 5 Oct the price went up to R14,999. On 12 Oct it was shown as a sale at R6,999, with R14,999 as the “was” price. Saving against the price before the rise: none.
• Large appliances: R9,499 on 5 Oct. On 9 Oct the price went up to R19,999. On 12 Oct it was shown as a sale at R9,499, with R19,999 as the “was” price. Saving against the price before the rise: none.

2. The price see-saw

The price goes up and comes back down, with no claim attached. It is not a trick in itself, but it shows why the day you buy matters.

• Living room: R2,499 on 20 Sep, R4,999 on 1 Oct, and back to R2,499 on 8 Oct. Anyone who bought on the high days paid R2,500 more.

3. A “was” price nobody saw

The shop shows a higher “was” price, but in all our daily records we never saw it charge that price. On our product pages we label these “not verified”: it may be true from before we started, or from another channel, but we cannot confirm it.

We name the category, not the shop or the product, in these examples. Prices change for many reasons, and a price that went up is not proof of anything. We show what we recorded so that you can decide.

Real drops on today’s record

These are price drops we can stand behind: we recorded the higher price ourselves, on the shop’s own page, before it fell.

• Hisense 9kg Front Loader Washing Machine with Inverter - Titanium Grey at Takealot: R5,299 on 17 Oct. The usual price we recorded for it was R9,999, so this is 47% less.
• Lenovo Thinkpad l490 Core i5 - 8th Gen at Revibe: R5,899 on 17 Oct. The usual price we recorded for it was R11,699, so this is 50% less.
• Borderlands 4 Standard Edition PS5 at HiFi Corp: R699 on 17 Oct. The usual price we recorded for it was R1,499, so this is 53% less.
• Borderlands 4 Standard Edition PS5 at Incredible Connection: R699 on 17 Oct. The usual price we recorded for it was R1,499, so this is 53% less.

See all of today’s real deals

How to check any deal yourself

1. Find the price history. Search for the product on theDeals.co.za and open its chart. Look at the weeks before the sale, not just today.
2. Compare with the price before the sale, not the “was” price. If the price went up shortly before the sale, the real saving is the gap between today’s price and the price before the rise.
3. Check if the “was” price was ever charged. A “was” price we never recorded is marked “not verified” on the product page.
4. Check other shops. The same product is often cheaper somewhere else, sale or no sale.
5. Set a price alert. If the price is not right today, ask us to email you when it drops. It is free, and you can stop it with one click.

How we decide

We call a price “raised before the sale” when it rose by at least 10%, then came back down within 45 days to no more than 5% below the price before the rise. If it falls further than that, we count it as a real sale. A rise that only brings back a price the shop charged in the previous two months is a sale ending, not a raise, and we leave it out. We only call something a real drop when we recorded the higher price ourselves.

Every price is stored with the day we saw it and is never changed afterwards. We read only shops’ public pages, we follow their robots.txt, and no shop can pay to change what we show. More on About us.

Spotted something?

If you think we got a price wrong, or you want to tell us about a sale, email [email protected]. Journalists are welcome to use these numbers; please name theDeals.co.za as the source.