Who: The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and Hammonds Furniture Ltd (Hammonds)
Where: United Kingdom
When: 8 October 2025
Law stated as at: 20 October 2025
What happened:
Sharps Furniture Group challenged advertising appearing on Hammonds’ website on three grounds:
- Whether a countdown clock, showing the apparent time remaining to take advantage of the promotion, was misleading because the promotion continued after the clock had expired.
- Whether price claims stating “we won’t be beaten on price” and “we can offer you better quality furniture at a price others can’t beat” could be substantiated.
- Whether the price claims were verifiable.
The ASA upheld all three complaints.
The countdown clock
Hammonds’ website banner stated “Up to 40% off selected finishes + an extra 5% offer ends in [ … ]” with a countdown timer showing the time, apparently, remaining. Hammonds argued that the countdown related only to the “extra 5%” offer, which expired on 26 May 2025, while the “up to 40% off” was a separate promotion, which ran for a further week, until 2 June 2025.
The ASA found that because the text covered both the “extra 5%” offer and the “40% off” promotion and was presented as a continuous sentence in the same size and font with no stylistic differences or spacing between the two offers, consumers would understand this to be one combined promotion, ending when the countdown reached zero. The ASA was concerned that the countdown clock was likely to pressurise consumers into making a quick purchase without proper consideration and found the ad to be misleading.
The price claims
A web page on Hammonds’ website, titled “Why Choose Hammonds?”, included the following price claims: “we won’t be beaten on quality and price” and “we can offer you better quality furniture at a price others can’t beat”. The UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising and Direct and Promotional Marketing (CAP Code) requires that comparisons with identifiable competitors must not mislead or be likely to mislead consumers about either the advertised product or the competing product.
Hammonds said that consumers would understand these claims to refer to its price match promise, according to which it pledged to match a competitor’s price if consumers found a like-for-like competitor’s product at a lower price, or explain why it could not match that price.
The ASA disagreed because the ad did not make any reference to a price match promise or provide any link to where this information could be found. Although this information was available on a separate page on the Hammonds website, the ASA understood that consumers could navigate through the website without being directed to that page, meaning that they were likely to be unaware of it. It was, therefore, likely that consumers would understand the claims to mean that Hammonds offered furniture at lower prices than competitors. Accordingly, they were comparative claims for which Hammonds was obliged to hold evidence to substantiate those claims.
Hammonds submitted a spreadsheet of price match claims that it had approved or rejected between June 2024 and August 2025. The ASA found this evidence insufficient as it did not substantiate the ad’s lowest price claim. Hammonds also said that due to the bespoke nature of its services it could only conduct market checks against its competitors’ comparable products and services by contacting its competitors directly and requesting quotes. It provided a spreadsheet detailing the market checks it had conducted between February 2024 and August 2025. The ASA found that Hammonds had conducted only seven price checks, all against a single competitor and its subsidiaries, which was inadequate to substantiate the claims. The limitations on gathering competitor information also meant that it was unlikely that Hammonds would be able to gather sufficient evidence that could substantiate such claims at all.
The ASA concluded that the ad was misleading, as Hammonds did not provide robust documentary evidence, or evidence of adequate price monitoring, to substantiate its price claims.
Verification of comparative claims
The CAP Code requires comparisons with identifiable competitors to be verifiable, meaning that an ad featuring a comparison with an identifiable competitor needs to include or direct consumers to sufficient information to allow them to understand the comparison and to be able to check that the claims are accurate. In the ASA’s view, Hammonds’ price claims made comparisons with an identifiable competitor.
However, Hammonds did not provide any information to allow consumers to verify the claims or direct them to where such information could be found. Further, because of the difficulties in obtaining the price lists of its competitors, Hammonds could not make a direct comparison with its own price list, meaning that it was not possible to verify the price claims at all. The ASA concluded that the ad was misleading due to the lack of information to allow consumers to verify the comparative claims.
Why this matters:
This ruling highlights the particular risks for retailers of bespoke products and services when substantiating comparative price claims. Just because a product or service is bespoke in nature does not mean that the seller is excused from the need to substantiate its claims. Those advertising bespoke products and services should therefore ensure that robust price monitoring is conducted across multiple competitors and that superlative price claims are avoided unless they can be objectively verified.
Where countdown timers are used in adverts these must accurately reflect which offer or promotion is actually expiring, and should not be used to unnecessarily pressurise consumers into making a quick purchase without proper consideration.
