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ARTICLE · 03 AUGUST 2023

It's The Final Countdown…or Is It?: CMA Issues Decision On Online Pressure-selling Tactics

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Countdown clocks are a useful feature of digital advertising. Think "Sale ends midnight!" accompanied by a clock counting down the minutes you have left to make an order.

United StatesConsumer Protection
Arthur Artinian
Arthur Artinian
Georgina Rigg
Georgina Rigg

Countdown clocks are a useful feature of digital advertising. Think "Sale ends midnight!" accompanied by a clock counting down the minutes you have left to make an order. When used correctly these urgency claims can help drive interest in a sale. However, they can also easily become misleading and breach UK consumer protection laws.

These types of "urgency claims" include scarcity, popularity, act fast, or time limited claims and have recently come under the spotlight of the UK Competition and Markets Authority ("CMA").

A cautionary tale for online pressure-selling tactics

The CMA's interest in mattress-in-a-box retailer Emma Sleep follows an ASA decision in March 2022 which found that the countdown clocks used by the company pressurised consumers into making quick transactional decisions, due to the misleading implication that the offer would end when the timer ran down.

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