Simba Sleep has agreed to change its online sales practices following an investigation by the CMA which highlighted concerns that the company may have misled customers about price reductions and caused unfair pressure on consumers to make hasty purchases. As well as the CMA’s investigation, the ASA had issued rulings in September 2022 and March 2024 against Simba Sleep, upholding complaints about adverts which the ASA found to be using misleading pricing claims and were in breach of the UK Advertising Codes.
In December 2023, the CMA started investigating Simba Sleep, setting out its concerns and asked Simba to address them. Simba has now committed to undertakings including:
- Genuine discount claims: Simba Sleep will ensure any ‘was’ price is genuine – that is, that they actually sell a sufficient volume of the product at that price before using it as a ‘was’ price; and
- Countdown clocks: Simba Sleep will ensure that any countdown clocks used on its websites are clear; specify prominently which products they apply to; and will not give consumers a false impression that they must act quickly, or that when the clock ends the product will revert to the ‘was’ price, if this is not the case.
The investigation into Simba Sleep is part of the CMA’s programme of consumer enforcement focused on ‘Online Choice Architecture’ aimed at tackling potentially harmful online selling practices. The CMA has also been investigating Emma Sleep and Wowcher.
So that the CMA can ensure that Simba Sleep is complying with its commitments, it must report to the CMA within the next six months.
The UK parliament recently passed the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, which gives the CMA stronger consumer powers, enabling the CMA to decide when consumer law has been broken without taking cases to court first. The Act permits the CMA to fine firms that break consumer law up to 10% of their global turnover.
The CMA has also produced guidance for online mattress retailers about pricing claims. Although the guidance is specific to that sector, it is of interest for all online retailers.
