Explained

Fans of UCPD and the CPRs may note that fake countdown timers were already prohibited (captured under regulatory activity over false urgency) and the DMCCA has not introduced new requirements per se. In fact, the CMA itself has taken action prior to the DMCCA. However, it’s making a very big deal of them right now because they’ve identified them as being of particular concern – they happen a lot and they drive up costs for consumers.

Consumers under pressure

Why is this such a serious consumer protection issue? After all, surely consumers benefit from a longer time to take advantage of an offer! Er, nope. Countdown timers create a sense of urgency, which means consumers feel pressured into making a decision. In the wise words of the ASA, countdown timers are “likely to pressurise consumers into making a quick purchase without giving it proper consideration” – a distortion of their economic behaviour (we nicked that wording from UCPD). If they’re doing this on the basis of unclear or false information, that’s clearly unfair

Things not to do

The CMA is looking at whether a furniture store and an appliance seller’s “time-limited sales ended when they said they would”. They haven’t given specific details beyond this, but as the ASA (who uses the same regulatory principles) has considered it several times over the years, we can get a sense of what’s likely to be going on. Here are three key scenarios: 

Just one thing after another

Most probable is either an actual countdown timer that simply resets at zero, or a slightly more complex scenario where a time-limited sale ended and was immediately replaced with something very similar.

The CMA guidance gives the classic example:

“A trader falsely tells a consumer that an offer will end when a countdown clock runs out in order to pressure them into making an immediate decision to buy. When the time runs down, the offer does not in fact end, but continues and the countdown clock restarts.”

As per the ASA examples above, traders have also been known to immediately follow one promotion with another that just-so-happens to offer pretty much the same discount on the same products.

For video games, the most relevant context is going to be an in-game item store with limited-time discounts or one-off items/bundles. If you’re promoting something with a deadline, it needs to end when the timer reaches zero.

Nice to see you again! Or not.

However, this isn’t just about an unbroken chain of time-limited offers – it can still apply if the offer ends but then appears again. This might be a discount that is reused shortly after it ended, even if there’s a break, or an offer that appeared to be a one-off but then comes back.

Handily for us, the CMA’s guidance has an example of this type of bad practice in a video games context:

“An app-based game offers ‘skins’ to change the appearance of the player’s avatar in the in-game store. A new skin is offered for £1.99 with the message ‘exclusive opportunity – only available for 5 days’. However, 10 days later, the same skin is offered in the store again.”

This doesn’t necessarily only include limited edition items – it could extend to scenarios such as bundles with one-off combinations of existing items, especially if there’s something notable about it (such as a particularly efficient way of obtaining those items).

What are you waiting for?

Finally, this principle would also apply if the countdown was genuine, but it wasn’t clear what it was actually for. The ASA has previously looked at an instance where the countdown timer accompanied an “Up to 40% off + an extra 5% offer” – turns out that the countdown timer only referred to the extra 5% discount, so the 40% discount continued. Sadly for the advertiser, this wasn’t communicated well enough.

If you’re using a countdown timer, take a moment to really think about your syntax and whether you’ve been specific enough about what bit of the transaction is subject to the time limit.

TL;DR?

To be blunt, the principle here is that if you’re using a countdown timer or other deadline mechanic, it should be obvious what it’s counting down to and, crucially, when it reaches 00:00, that thing should happen.