The omnibus has already exposed Polish online stores. Fake promotions were quickly found

Since the beginning of 2023, the Omnibus Directive has been in force in Poland, which imposes an additional obligation on online stores. They must on their websites – next to the current price of the product – provide the lowest price from the last 30 days.

The directive aims to curb a common practice in stores, i.e. organizing false promotions. The customer has the ability to quickly check whether the current – allegedly reduced – price of the item is actually lower than the regular one. Does it work in practice and how? We decided to check it out.

How does the Omnibus Directive work in Polish stores?

We took a closer look at the websites of all the most popular electronics stores. And here’s an important note, the annotation regarding the lowest price from the last 30 days appears only for products that have been marked as discounted by the store. There is no obligation to apply the Directive when the product is at regular price.

Therefore, to find the application of the Omnibus Directive in practice, you need to look for promotions on the Internet. Most stores have already adapted to the new regulations and we can easily find the appropriate annotation. It is almost always placed just below the current discounted price and information about the ongoing promotion.

Most sellers present information about the past lowest price in a relatively visible way. However, it is worth being careful. At least in some stores, this information is not visible at first glance. The directive does not specify how the old price is to be displayed, therefore adding it in “fine print” is in accordance with the regulations.

Fake promotions were quickly found

It didn’t take long to look for an example of a quasi-promotion. In two online stores, we found, for example, the Galaxy S22 Ultra smartphone, discounted from PLN 5,899 to PLN 5,199. And this, despite the fact that during the last month its price was at least PLN 4,899. Before the “reduction” it was PLN 300 cheaper than after its introduction.

Fake promotion? This is how the Omnibus Directive works photo screenshot from Avans website

There are of course more similar examples. We found promotional prices by several dozen or even several hundred zlotys higher than those from the last 30 days in most stores. In the vast majority of cases, the “promotional” price was identical or slightly different from the lowest price from the last month. However, there are also a single place, and where – despite organizing promotions – the provisions of the directive have not yet been introduced.

Operation of the Omnibus directive in practice photo: screenshot from the websites of Elektro.pl, Vobis.pl, RTV Euro AGD and Media Expert stores

The Omnibus Directive is the colloquial name of the Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council (EU) of November 27, 2019. Poland, like several other countries, delayed the introduction of the regulation – in many EU countries it has been in force since mid-last year. Unfortunately – due to this delay – the directive did not come into force before Black Friday (at the end of November), when shops organize thousands of – allegedly extremely attractive – promotions.

Especially since her records seem to be working fine at the moment. Internet users are already flooding the network with examples of alleged promotions under which we have to pay more for a given product than in the last month.