What the DMCC and recent CMA investigations mean for pricing practices

The Oasis ticket sale in August 2024 brought dynamic pricing and price transparency into public view. Fans reaching the front of lengthy online queues expecting one price found available tickets were materially more expensive than anticipated. For businesses it also ushered in a broader shift in regulatory scrutiny of pricing practices across sectors. 

The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCC) now sets out rules for firms to follow. It's up to the CMA to investigate where that might not  be happening, scrutinising dynamic pricing, drip pricing, discount claims, urgency messaging and default options in digital sales journeys.

It’s not simply a question of whether a price is too high; it’s whether the pricing structure, associated claims and customer journey are transparent, substantiated and fair. 

With Oasis tickets, the CMA was concerned that dynamic pricing may have been used inappropriately. It found it hadn't been used, but it did find other issues.

Its investigation focused on whether consumers were given clear and timely pricing information and whether the purchase process placed them under undue pressure. The main concerns were inadequate disclosure of tiered standing ticket prices and the presentation of “platinum” seated tickets at much higher prices without sufficient explanation. 

The case ended with undertakings requiring clearer advance disclosure of tiered pricing, better information during queues and less misleading labelling.  

The key point for firms is that the CMA’s concern was not that real-time dynamic pricing had been used, but about transparency. Dynamic pricing is not unlawful per se, but opaque pricing journeys and poorly explained price differentials can be. 

The DMCC gives the CMA direct consumer enforcement powers, including the ability to investigate, order changes, secure redress and impose substantial penalties. That makes pricing compliance a live regulatory issue for consumer-facing businesses.  

Recent investigations show that the CMA is looking beyond the final price charged to the wider pricing architecture: how a price is framed, when mandatory charges appear, whether premium or discounted products are described accurately and whether urgency messages or default settings distort decision-making. This same analytical framework now applies across ticketing, retail, homewares, travel and other consumer-facing sectors. 

Emma Sleep is the clearest recent example of the CMA’s approach to online pricing and promotion. The conduct in issue included misleading countdown timers, false high-demand messages and discount claims that could create a false impression of urgency or savings. The practical lesson is that firms cannot assume that common online techniques will be treated as acceptable if the underlying claims are not genuine and evidenced. 

The CMA’s first direct enforcement cases under the DMCC point in the same direction. They focus on drip pricing, late disclosure of mandatory fees, promotional claims and pre-selected default options. A technically correct headline price may still be problematic if the surrounding journey, defaults or claims impair informed consumer choice. 

Misleading discount claims remain a key risk area. The CMA’s position is that “was/now” and similar savings claims must reflect a genuine price advantage, not an artificial benchmark created by rolling promotions or weak evidence of sales at the higher price. For firms and their advisers, that makes discount substantiation an economic as well as a legal issue. 

The common theme is that pricing risk now sits at the intersection of commercial strategy, behavioural design and consumer law. The question is whether the consumer can understand the true offer, compare it properly and make an informed choice without being misled or pressured. 

Firms should review pricing practices by category rather than treating pricing risk as a single abstract issue. That means identifying where the business uses:  

• Dynamic pricing 
• “From” pricing 
• Reference pricing 
• Urgency claims 
• Partitioned pricing 
• Default add-ons or mandatory fees disclosed later in the journey 

For each practice, the key questions are,what information is material to the consumer, when it is shown, whether the claim can be substantiated, and how the overall journey affects consumer understanding and choice. 

In practice, firms need evidence as well as policy language. They should be able to show how reference prices were derived, whether scarcity and urgency claims are genuine, which charges are mandatory, how “from” prices were calculated and whether the customer journey has been tested for comprehension rather than simply conversion. Legal analysis and economic evidence increasingly need to work together. 

S&W’s economists sit at the boundary between pricing strategy, consumer behaviour, competition issues and evidence. We help clients assess whether pricing structures are efficiency-enhancing or likely to create consumer detriment;whether reference prices are meaningful; whether price differentials reflect genuine differences in products or services; and whether disclosures are likely to support informed decision-making in practice. 

We also support investigation readiness and response by analysing customer journeys, testing likely consumer understanding, assessing whether savings or scarcity claims are substantiated and evaluating alternative pricing designs.  

We work alongside legal, compliance, pricing and marketing teams to help clients review existing practices, respond to CMA concerns and build pricing frameworks that are commercially effective, behaviourally robust and evidentially defensible. For firms and their legal advisers, the key is to address these issues early before pricing practices become a competition problem.