A recommended price is a suggestion, not a rule
RRP, short for recommended retail price, and MSRP, its US equivalent, manufacturer's suggested retail price, describe a figure the manufacturer suggests as a reasonable selling price. Neither term describes a price any shop is required to charge. A retailer can sell above, at, or well below that figure, and in most product categories very few shops actually sell at the RRP for long once a product has been on the market for a while. That makes "40 percent off RRP" a statement about the gap between two numbers a shop controls, its own current price and the figure it chooses to compare against, rather than proof of an unusually good deal.
Why manufacturers set an RRP at all
Manufacturers use a recommended price for several reasons that have little to do with helping shoppers compare deals. It gives retailers a starting reference for wholesale negotiations, it creates a consistent number across a manufacturer's own marketing materials, and in some sectors it signals a product's intended market position, premium or budget, independent of what shops end up charging. None of these purposes require the RRP to track what people are actually paying in shops at any given time, and for many products it does not.
How RRP differs from an actual selling price over time
A newly launched product often sells close to its RRP because there is little competing stock yet and demand is at its peak. As the same product ages, gets replaced by a newer model, or ends up on shelves in several competing shops, its typical selling price usually drifts below the RRP, sometimes by a wide margin. A shop advertising "reduced from RRP" months or years after launch is often comparing today's price against a figure that stopped reflecting normal selling prices long ago, even without any dishonesty involved. The RRP itself simply never moved once the manufacturer set it.
What the rules actually say about using RRP as a reference
- In the European Union, the Omnibus Directive requires that when a shop advertises a price reduction, the "before" figure must be the lowest price the shop itself charged for that item in the previous 30 days, not the manufacturer's RRP. A shop that never actually charged the RRP cannot legitimately use it as the reduction reference.
- In the UK, trading standards guidance follows the same principle: a claimed reduction should be measured against a price the retailer genuinely charged recently, not an official but rarely used figure like RRP.
- In the US, the Federal Trade Commission's guidance on pricing similarly expects a "former price" comparison to reflect a price that was actually, genuinely offered for a reasonable period, rather than a manufacturer's suggested figure the retailer never charged.
In all three regions, the direction of travel is the same: regulators increasingly expect the comparison price to be one the shop actually used, not a manufacturer's number that may never have applied to that shop at all.
What to check instead of trusting the RRP gap
Since RRP tells you little about current market prices, the more useful comparisons are the shop's own recent price where available, and the current price at one or two other shops selling the same item. Browsing the same product across a few listings under categories takes a couple of minutes and gives a far better sense of whether a price is reasonable than any percentage-off-RRP claim on its own. A large "percentage off" figure next to an RRP is not evidence of a good deal by itself; it is a marketing framing that can be true, misleading, or somewhere in between.
Where a code fits into this
None of this changes how a voucher code or coupon code works. A code applies to whatever price the shop is currently charging, regardless of how that price compares to the RRP. Checking for a working code is still worth doing on every order, but it is a separate step from judging whether the underlying price itself is reasonable. We list checked codes across the shops on daily-coupons.info, updated multiple times a day, without making claims about how any individual shop's price compares to its RRP.
A quick way to judge an RRP-based claim
If a shop shows a large discount measured against RRP, ask two questions before assuming it is a good deal: has this shop, or a comparable one, sold the item closer to today's price recently, and is today's price genuinely competitive against other current listings. If either answer is unclear, the RRP figure on its own is not enough to decide.
Frequently asked questions
Is it illegal for a shop to compare its price against RRP?
Showing an RRP alongside a current price is not automatically illegal, but using it as the reference for a claimed percentage reduction can breach pricing rules in the EU and expectations under UK and US guidance if the shop never genuinely charged that RRP itself. The relevant rules generally expect the comparison to use a price the retailer actually charged.
Does RRP mean the same thing as MSRP?
They describe the same idea, a manufacturer's suggested selling price, using regional terminology: RRP is more common in the UK and parts of Europe, MSRP more common in the US. Neither is a price any retailer is obliged to follow.
Why do prices often end up well below RRP over time?
Competition between retailers, a product ageing or being replaced by a newer model, and stock clearance all tend to push actual selling prices down over a product's life, while the RRP itself usually stays fixed at whatever figure the manufacturer originally set.
Should I ignore RRP completely?
Not entirely; it can give a rough sense of a product's intended market position. It should not, however, be treated as a fair or current reference point for judging whether today's price is a good deal.
