11:07 am, November 30, 2022
Adverts by Euro Car Parts have been banned for misleading people about possible savings.
Two email adverts in May promised up to 45 per cent and up to 50 per cent off car parts, with the first offer ending at midnight on May 26 – the day the email was sent – and the second one, which was received the day after, on May 31.
The subject line of the second one also said that a 10 per cent saving could be made on selected swimming pools.
The claims were challenged as misleading by one person, who told the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) they didn’t believe the advertised discounts represented genuine savings.
In its response, Tamworth-headquartered Euro Car Parts provided a pricing history for a period covering the dates of the promotional emails.
It included the advertised and actual sold price of all products in its sales as advertised by the emails, which included for both online and in-store.
Euro Car Parts told the watchdog that even though its terms of conditions from the two sales excluded in-store sales, store managers had the discretion to match online discounts, which they often did.
It also said that in some instances, the same part number appeared within the data several times and that showed where the same product had been advertised and sold at different prices across the six-month time period.
But the ASA said people would understand the claims to mean they’d be making a genuine saving against the usual selling price of car parts and that a significant number of them would be for up to 45 per cent and 50 per cent respectively.
It also said it considered that the savings claims referred to temporary promotions and the prices would revert to their usual higher prices after the end dates.
The watchdog pointed out as well that the second advert introduced a sale with a larger discount the day after the previous sale had ended.
It was therefore unlikely that the reductions in the second advert would constitute savings against the usual selling price of the products.
The ASA also said the data showed that more than 97 per cent of car parts had been sold at a lower price than its headline or ‘reference’ price across the period.
As such, it wasn’t possible to determine if the sales at the lower prices were only during the sales periods or whether the products were being sold at those prices throughout the period.
However, it considered that based on that data, the headline prices were unlikely to be realistic selling prices for the products, or their usual selling prices.
The ASA therefore ruled that the adverts were misleading and told Euro Car Parts that they mustn’t appear again in the same form.
It also said that future savings claims mustn’t mislead and that Euro Car Parts should ensure that it substantiated its savings claims against a usual selling price of its products.
Following the ruling, a spokesperson for LKQ Euro Car Parts told Car Dealer: ‘While we are disappointed that the ASA has found against us and wish to be clear that we would never intentionally mislead our customers, it is evident that some of our historic email advertising caused unnecessary confusion.
‘We have co-operated fully with the ASA since it reached out to us, and we are confident that our customers will find our great-value pricing model to be clear and consistent.’
