Every year, tens of millions of Indians wait for events like Amazon Great Indian Festival on Amazon India, Big Billion Days on Flipkart, End of Season Sale on Myntra, and Big Bold Sale on Ajio. The deals feel irresistible: 60%, 70%, even 80% off across electronics, fashion, and home goods. But how many of those discounts are genuine?
The honest answer: many are not. Indian e-commerce has a well-documented pattern of inflating the listed MRP (Maximum Retail Price) — sometimes just weeks before a major sale — so that the "discount" looks huge even though the actual selling price hasn't changed much. This practice is so widespread that it has its own name in the consumer community: MRP inflation.
What Is MRP Inflation?
MRP is the legally mandated maximum price a product can be sold for in India. When a seller lists a product on Amazon or Flipkart, they declare an MRP and then set their actual selling price. The "discount" is calculated as the percentage difference between the MRP and the selling price.
Here is the problem: sellers — especially third-party sellers on marketplaces — can change the MRP they declare. Ahead of a big sale, a seller might raise the listed MRP from ₹2,999 to ₹5,999, then list the selling price as ₹2,499. That creates a headline that reads "58% off" even though the product was selling for ₹2,699 the week before.
The percentage looks fantastic. The actual saving is close to zero.
Why the Platforms Allow It
Amazon and Flipkart do not manufacture products — they are marketplaces. Most products are sold by third-party sellers who set their own MRPs. Policing every MRP change across tens of millions of listings is genuinely difficult, and there is a commercial incentive not to be too strict: bigger discount numbers drive more clicks and purchases.
Both platforms have policies against artificial price inflation, and they do remove some listings that violate them. But the scale of the problem, especially during sale seasons, means that inflated-MRP products routinely appear in the most prominent sale slots.
How Price History Reveals the Truth
The only reliable way to check whether a sale price is genuine is to look at what the product actually sold for before the sale. This is exactly what price history trackers like PriceDiff show — and we describe exactly how we do it on our methodology page.
When you paste a product link into PriceDiff, you see every price that has been recorded for that product, plotted on a chart. If the product was ₹2,699 last month and is ₹2,499 today — that's a genuine small saving of about ₹200, not a "58% discount". If the chart shows a genuine new all-time low with the price clearly below every previous reading, that is a real deal.
Specific Patterns to Watch For
- Price spike just before the sale: If the price history chart shows a sudden sharp increase in the two to four weeks before a sale event, followed by the 'sale price' returning to roughly where it was before, the discount is manufactured.
- Stable high MRP, falling selling price: If the chart shows the selling price dropping to a new low while the MRP hasn't changed, that is a genuine discount. See today's products at their all-time low for live examples.
- Products at 'all-time low' price: Filters like PriceDiff's Lowest Price Ever page show products genuinely at their lowest recorded price. These are worth paying attention to.
- The '1 left in stock' pressure tactic: This is separate from price inflation but equally common. Many listings artificially show low stock to create urgency. Check the price history first — if the deal is genuine, the chart will confirm it.
Which Categories Are Most Affected?
MRP inflation is most common in categories with high margins and no standard pricing:
Fashion and apparel (Myntra, Ajio, and fashion categories on Amazon/Flipkart): These are the most affected. The same kurta can have an MRP of ₹1,499 one week and ₹3,499 the next. Since there is no universal reference price for fashion, the MRP is essentially whatever the seller says it is. See our longer explanation of MRP and how it gets manipulated.
Lifestyle accessories — watches, bags, sunglasses, jewellery — follow the same pattern.
Electronics is generally better, but not immune. Phone accessories, cables, chargers, and smaller gadgets are common offenders. Core electronics like smartphones and laptops are harder to inflate because buyers actively compare prices across multiple sellers.
Home goods and kitchen appliances fall somewhere in between.
How to Check Before You Buy
The process takes about 30 seconds:
1. Copy the product link from Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, or Ajio. 2. Paste it into PriceDiff. 3. Look at the price history chart. Is today's price actually lower than the price over the past three to six months? 4. Check whether today's price is at or near the all-time lowest recorded price. 5. If yes to both — it is likely a genuine deal. If the chart shows the price has been at or below this level before, it is not.
This does not take long, and it will save you money over and over — especially during the big sale events when the urgency is highest and the fraud risk is greatest.
What About Platform Sale Badges?
Amazon uses badges like "Deal of the Day", "Lightning Deal", and "Great Indian Festival Deal". Flipkart uses "Big Billion Days Deal", "Flipkart Assured", and similar labels. These badges do not guarantee the price is genuine — they indicate the product is featured in the sale, not that it has never been cheaper.
The only thing that tells you whether the price is historically low is actual price history. Always cross-check.
Summary
Fake discounts in Indian e-commerce are widespread, especially during major sale events. The mechanism is simple: inflate the listed MRP before the sale, then bring the selling price down to roughly where it already was and call it a discount.
Protecting yourself is simple too: check the price history before you buy. If the chart shows the price has been at this level before, it is not a deal. If it shows a genuine new low, it is. PriceDiff tracks price history for Amazon India, Flipkart, Myntra, and Ajio — paste the product link and the chart does the rest.