Which Amazon categories have the most fake discounts? 15 weeks of data

Some shopping categories are far more likely to show you a discount that is not real. Over 15 weeks of the Fake Deal Index, from July 6 to October 19, 2026, we sampled roughly 1,200 to 2,200 advertised Amazon deals in each of 13 categories and checked whether today’s price was actually below what the product usually costs. The gap between the worst and best categories is enormous: about one in three deals in the worst category was padded, against fewer than one in forty in the best.

The full ranking

The table pools all 15 weekly samples. “Not really a deal” means the price was within 8% of the product’s usual 90-day price, or higher, despite the discount badge. The last column shows each category’s best and worst single week, which tells you how steady the pattern is.

Furniture appears in 9 of the 15 weekly samples rather than all of them, so its totals are smaller.

The worst offenders

Computers: 33.6%

One in three computer deals in our sample was not a real discount. Computers also had the widest swing of any category: from 3% in its best week to 64% in its worst. That volatility is the tell. Laptops, desktops and mini PCs have manufacturer list prices that are often hundreds of dollars above what the machines sell for, and retailers move prices often as new configurations arrive. A “20% off” badge measured against a list price can sit on a machine that is selling exactly where it always does. The example we keep coming back to is an ASUS NUC 14 Pro+ mini PC shown as a deal at $1,216, when its usual price over the previous 90 days was about $1,099.

Office supplies: 28.6%

Office products were the most consistently padded category. Even their best week was 16%, and during Prime Big Deal Days, when almost every category cleaned up, office supplies still came in at 25%. Notebooks, folders, filing products and desk organizers are low-ticket items bought in bulk and rarely compared closely, which makes them an easy place to print a badge. Our weekly examples are full of them: journals, payroll record books, reinforced folders, desk sorters.

Furniture: 24.7%

Furniture has the classic ingredients of fake discounting: high list prices, few identical competing listings, and buyers who purchase rarely and so have little sense of the normal price. It stayed between 20% and 35% in every week we measured it.

Toys, video games, health and pet supplies: 20% to 24%

These four sit just above the overall average of about 19%. Toys and video games both spiked to around 40% in their worst weeks, and both are heavily promoted in the run-up to the holidays, which is worth keeping in mind for November.

The most trustworthy categories

Sports & outdoors (3.6%) and shoes & apparel (2.4%)

At the other end, sporting goods and shoes were rarely busted. It is tempting to read that as “these retailers are honest”, but the more accurate reading is about how prices move. Clothing and sporting goods are discounted constantly and deeply, so an advertised sale is usually below the product’s recent selling price too. That does not mean the struck-through “was” price is honest; a pair of shoes that is permanently “40% off” usually has a list price nobody pays. It means that when you see a deal in these categories, today’s price is usually at or below what the item has been selling for. The percentage on the badge is still not something to trust.

Home & kitchen, tools and beauty: 13% to 16%

These sit below average. Beauty is the one to watch: it was 27% in the week of October 19, its worst showing in the sample.

Electronics is in the middle, and it moves a lot

Electronics averaged 19.5%, almost exactly the overall rate, but it ranged from 1% to 35% week to week. During Prime Big Deal Days it was 0%: every electronics deal we checked was genuinely below its usual price. In ordinary weeks it can be one of the worst. If you are buying headphones, a TV or a speaker, timing matters more than in almost any other category.

How these numbers are measured

Every week we take a fresh sample of advertised Amazon deals, about 1,500 to 1,750 of them, spread across 13 shopping categories so that no single category dominates. For each one we compare today’s price with the price that product has usually sold for over the previous 90 days, using our own price research. A deal counts as “not really a deal” (we call it busted) when today’s price is within 8% of that usual price or higher. In other words, the discount badge is there, but the price is not meaningfully lower than what the product normally costs.

That rule is deliberately generous to retailers. A product that is 9% below its usual price passes, even if its struck-through “was” price is wildly inflated. So the share you see is a floor, not a ceiling: the real number of misleading discounts is, if anything, higher. Each week’s report, its examples and a downloadable CSV are on the Fake Deal Index, and the full method is on our methodology page.

How to use this

• In computers, office and furniture, assume the badge is meaningless and check the price history every time.
• In electronics, time your purchase. The same category goes from mostly honest during a major event to one in three padded in a bad week.
• In shoes and sporting goods, a deal is usually a real price, but the “was” price is usually not. Compare against what the item has been selling for, not the struck-through number.

For any specific product, paste its link into worthitforyou to see today’s price against a year of real prices. Our buying guides cover when each category tends to hit its genuine lows.