Displayed Prices: When a Shop Must Honour the Ticket, and When It Need Not

The shelf says R89. The scanner says R129. The cashier says the shelf tag is old, and there is now a queue behind you.

South African law has a clear answer to this, and it is not the one most retail staff give. Section 23 of the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 obliges a retailer to display a price, settles what happens when two prices appear, and — this is the part shops rely on without meeting its conditions — sets a narrow escape for genuine errors.

A price must be displayed

Section 23(3) puts the base obligation plainly:

"A retailer must not display any goods for sale without displaying to the consumer a price in relation to those goods."

Not "should where practical". Must. Goods on a shelf without a price are goods displayed in breach of the section.

The section also deals with the reverse situation — a price that somebody has altered. A supplier is not bound by a price that was changed by an unauthorised person. That protects a shop against a customer who swaps stickers; it does not protect a shop against its own out-of-date labelling.

Two prices? You pay the lower one

This is the provision worth memorising, because it disposes of the commonest dispute in South African retail.

Section 23(6)(b): where more than one price is concurrently displayed,

"a supplier must not require a consumer to pay a price for any goods or services … higher than the lower or lowest of the prices so displayed"

So where the shelf tag and the scanner disagree — both being displayed prices — the lower one is what you pay. The scanner is not automatically right by virtue of being a computer.

And section 23(8) deals with the sticker-over-a-sticker case:

if one price is "fully covered and obscured by a second displayed price, that second price must be regarded as the displayed price"

Note the word fully. A new price sticker that completely covers the old one replaces it, and the old price underneath is irrelevant. A sticker that only partly covers the old price leaves two prices visible — and section 23(6)(b) then gives you the lower.

That is a fine distinction with real money in it, and it is why peeling a sticker to see what is underneath is not the winning move people think it is. If the old price was fully obscured, exposing it does not revive it.

The error exception, and its two conditions

Here is where shops overreach.

Section 23(9) says that where a displayed price contains

"an inadvertent and obvious error, the supplier is not bound by it after: (a) correcting the error in the displayed price; and (b) taking reasonable steps in the circumstances to inform consumers … of the error and the correct price"

Read it in pieces, because every piece is a condition.

"Inadvertent." An accident, not a policy. A price that was deliberately set and later regretted is not inadvertent.

"And obvious." Both words. A washing machine ticketed at R49 instead of R4,900 is obvious. A R200 difference on a R3,000 appliance is a mistake, but it is not obviously one to a shopper who has no idea what the item should cost. The test is not whether the supplier knows it is wrong; it is whether the error is obvious.

"Is not bound by it AFTER" — and then the two steps. The supplier stops being bound only once it has corrected the displayed price and taken reasonable steps to inform consumers of the error and the correct price.

That word "after" is doing the heaviest lifting in the subsection, and it is the part nobody quotes. A shop that discovers the problem when you arrive at the till, with the wrong ticket still on the shelf and no notice anywhere, has done neither of the two things the subsection requires. On the face of section 23(9), it has not yet stopped being bound.

None of which means you will win the argument at the counter. It means you know what to ask for: has the displayed price been corrected, and what steps were taken to inform consumers? Those are the questions a manager has to answer, and they are answerable in writing afterwards if not at the till.

What "concurrently displayed" means in a modern shop

Section 23(6)(b) turns on more than one price being displayed concurrently, and in a modern retailer that happens constantly without anyone intending it.

A single product can carry a shelf-edge label, a promotional header on the gondola end, a price on the packaging itself, a figure in that week's printed leaflet, a different figure in the retailer's app, and a seventh number in the scanner. Not all of those are "displayed to the consumer in relation to those goods" — the scanner result and the shelf label plainly are; a leaflet for a different branch plainly is not — but several usually are, and the section resolves the conflict in one direction only.

Two situations are worth separating.

The shelf label and the till disagree. Both are displayed in relation to the goods you are buying, so the lower governs. This is the everyday case.

An old promotional header remains above a shelf that has been repriced. If the header still displays a price in relation to those goods, it is hard to argue it is not concurrently displayed. Retailers know this, which is why the diligent ones strip promotional signage the night a promotion ends.

Online, the same logic applies with a different evidence problem. A price on a product page and a different price in the cart are both displayed. But a webpage can be altered in seconds and leaves no trace for the consumer, so a screenshot showing the URL, the product and the price — with the device's date visible — is worth more than any argument you can make afterwards.

A worked example

You take a coffee machine to the till. The shelf label said R1,299. The scanner says R1,749. There is no notice anywhere about a pricing correction, and the label is still on the shelf when you walk back to check.

Two displayed prices exist concurrently, so section 23(6)(b) says the supplier must not require you to pay more than R1,299.

The store invokes section 23(9). For that to succeed it needs the error to be inadvertent and obvious — a R450 gap on a R1,749 appliance is a real difference but not self-evidently a mistake to a shopper — and it must have corrected the displayed price and taken reasonable steps to inform consumers. Neither has happened; the label is still there.

If the store had instead removed the label that morning, replaced it, and put a notice on the shelf, the position would be quite different. That is the whole practical difference between a supplier relying on section 23(9) and a supplier merely mentioning it.

Advertised reductions

Section 23 also constrains how a "was / now" saving may be presented. An advertised price reduction must be calculated against the price immediately previously displayed for those goods, unless more than one price had been applied to them.

That is the provision behind the familiar complaint about a price quietly rising for a fortnight before a "sale". The section ties the comparison to what was actually displayed before, not to a notional recommended price or to what the item cost last year.

What to do at the till

Photograph the ticket before you move. A phone photograph of the shelf edge, showing the product and the price together, is the whole evidentiary problem solved. Do it before anyone removes the tag.

Ask for the lower price under section 23(6)(b), by name. Staff who deal with this daily respond differently to a section number than to an assertion.

If they claim an error, ask the two questions. Has the displayed price been corrected? What steps have been taken to inform consumers? A shop that is genuinely applying section 23(9) will have done both, and will usually say so immediately.

Escalate in writing, not at the counter. The cashier cannot decide this and the queue behind you is not your friend. Get the manager's name, take the photograph, pay or leave, and put it in an email the same day.

Then go to the regulator if it stands. The National Consumer Commission and the provincial consumer affairs offices handle exactly this. For suppliers in the financial sector, our guide to where to complain about a bank, insurer or credit provider sets out the right forum instead.

Where this sits among your other rights

Section 23 is about the price you pay at the moment of sale. Three neighbouring rights deal with what happens afterwards:

Frequently asked

The shelf price is lower than the till price. Which one do I pay? Where two prices are concurrently displayed, section 23(6)(b) says the supplier must not require you to pay more than the lower of them.

The shop says it was a pricing error. Is that the end of it? Not by itself. Section 23(9) requires the error to be both inadvertent and obvious, and the supplier stops being bound only after correcting the displayed price and taking reasonable steps to inform consumers of the error and the correct price.

Is a mispriced television at R99 an "obvious" error? Almost certainly yes. The subsection exists for exactly that case. The harder question is a small discrepancy on an item whose normal price a consumer would not know.

I peeled off the new sticker and the old price underneath was lower. If the new price fully covered and obscured the old one, section 23(8) treats the covering price as the displayed price. Removing it does not bring the old price back.

Does a shop have to price every item? Section 23(3) says a retailer must not display goods for sale without displaying a price in relation to those goods.

Someone swapped the stickers. Must the shop honour it? No. A supplier is not bound by a price that was altered by an unauthorised person.

Do these rules apply online? The section speaks of displayed prices rather than of a physical shelf, so a price displayed on a website is a displayed price. The practical difference is evidence — take a screenshot with the date visible, because a webpage can be changed without trace.