Expected Guideline Regarding “Discounted Sales Advertisements” Has Been Released! 19 April 2022

The regulation on 'discount sales advertisements', which has been regulated within the scope of the Law on the Protection of the Consumer, has been amended and this amendment entered into force on March 1, 2022. With this amendment,

It became compulsory to show the “price before the discount” clearly and apprehensibly in advertisements containing any written, audible or visual expression that shows a discount for a good or service in addition to the start and end dates of the discounted sale and the quantity of the goods or services if they are limited.

The amendment brought a criteria regarding the “price before the discount”. It has been regulated that the price before the discount will be determined by considering the lowest price which is applied in 30 days before the discount.

After these regulations, the Guideline on Advertisements Including Price Information and Discounted Sales Advertisements and Commercial Practices (“the Guideline”) in order to guide all persons, institutions and organizations related to advertising, advertising agencies, media organizations, vendors, providers, intermediary service providers and all persons, institutions and organizations that advertise about price information, discount sales advertisements and commercial applications, which is prepared based on the Law on the Protection of the Consumer No. 6502 and accepted as a resolution of Board of Advertisement in its meeting dated 12.04.2022 and numbered 320, Regulation On The Unfair Commercial Practices (“the Regulation”) is published on 15.04.2022.

Accordingly, it would be beneficial to specify the following rules over the questions arising in practice;

• The provision of the Regulation and the Guideline are applicable when there is a "discounted price advertisement". Otherwise, if the seller of the product does not want to make any discount announcements or does not want to include the strikethrough price, it is possible for the seller to re-determine the sales price of the product.
• According to the Regulation it is mandatory to specify the start and end dates of discount sales advertisements, however it is not mandatory to specify how long it will last.
• Expressions or images that may mislead consumers by causing confusion about which goods or services will be subject to discounted sale or how much discount will be applied, or that may create the impression that more discounts are applied than in reality, cannot be included in discount sales advertisements.
• The price before the discount will be determined by considering the lowest price which is applied in 30 days before the discount.

For instance: Let us consider a sales campaign active between the 5th and 8th days of a month. The product with a sales price of 100 TRY on the first day of the month is offered for sale with a discount of 50% on the fifth day of the month (meaning its price is 50 TRY) and the campaign ends at the 8th day of the month. If the same product is offered with a 60% discount (meaning its price is 40 TRY) on the 15th of the same month where 100 TRY is crossed out as the original price, this practice will be against the Regulation. Pursuant to the relevant Regulation, the previous price crossed out on the 15th of the month should be shown as 50 TRY (as the lowest price the product was sold at within the last 30 days) and the relevant discount should be shown as 20%.

For instance: for a product with the original sales price of 100 TRY and with the lowest sales price of 80 TRY in the last 30 days, if the seller wants to announce that there is a “40 TRY discount” on the product, the referred price where the discount is to be made should be announced as 40 TRY and the discounted sales price should be announced as 40 TRY. Similarly, if the seller wants to announce that there is a “40% discount”, the referred price should be 80 TRY, the discount amount should be 32 TRY, and the discounted sales price should be 48 TRY.

You can find the full text of the Guideline at the link below:

Fiyat Bilgisi İçeren Reklamlar İle İndirimli Satış Reklamları Ve Ticari Uygulamaları Hakkında Kılavuz