Directive (EU) 2019/2161, known as the Omnibus Directive, changed how online shops are allowed to announce discounts. Here is what it requires, and how FastCompete price history helps you prove your prior prices and spot competitors who inflate theirs.
Directive (EU) 2019/2161 is an amending directive: it does not stand on its own, but modernises four existing pieces of EU consumer law: the Price Indication Directive (98/6/EC), the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (2005/29/EC), the Consumer Rights Directive (2011/83/EU) and the Unfair Contract Terms Directive (93/13/EEC). Because it touches several laws at once, it is usually called the Omnibus Directive.
EU Member States had to transpose it into national law by 28 November 2021 and apply it from 28 May 2022. The exact wording, enforcement practice and penalties therefore live in each country's national law, not in the directive itself.
For e-commerce, the single most operational change is the new Article 6a of Directive 98/6/EC: the rule on how a price reduction must be announced.
FastCompete keeps a timestamped price history for every product URL you monitor, including your own store, so the prior price behind each discount is recorded, auditable and easy to export.
The part of the Omnibus Directive that changes your daily pricing work.
Any announcement of a price reduction must state the prior price, and the prior price is defined as the lowest price the trader applied during a period of at least 30 days before the reduction.
So you cannot raise a price for a week, cross it out and present the normal price as a discount. If the product was sold for less at any point in the previous 30 days, that lower figure is the reference price you must show.
For a discount that increases in steps without interruption, the prior price may stay the lowest price from the 30 days before the first reduction, so you do not have to re-baseline at each step.
Member States may set different rules for goods on the market for less than 30 days, and for fast-moving goods that spoil or expire quickly. Check your national transposition.
Crossed-out prices, percentages, “was/now” wording, countdown sales, Black Friday banners: anything presenting the current price as reduced triggers the rule.
Generic marketing claims with no reference price, price-matching statements and genuinely personalised, individually negotiated offers are treated differently. Loyalty discounts and conditional offers have their own national guidance.
Beyond price reductions, it tightened transparency and raised the cost of getting it wrong.
Submitting or commissioning false consumer reviews, and claiming reviews are verified without checking, are blacklisted practices.
Search and listing pages must disclose the main parameters determining ranking, and label paid placement.
If a price was personalised through automated decision-making, the consumer must be told before buying.
Online marketplaces must say whether the seller is a trader or a private individual, and who carries consumer-law obligations.
Marketing goods as identical to those sold in other Member States when their composition differs materially is misleading.
For widespread infringements, fines must be able to reach at least 4% of annual turnover in the Member States concerned, or €2 million where turnover data is unavailable.
Omnibus compliance is a record-keeping problem before it is a legal one. You need to know what every product actually cost over the last 30 days, and so do your competitors.
Add your own product URLs alongside your competitors'. FastCompete scans them on the same schedule and stores every observed price with a timestamp, so the lowest price in any 30-day window is a lookup, not a reconstruction.
Price history charts, change logs and alert screenshots give you dated proof of what was displayed and when, the kind of record a consumer-protection authority or a complaint asks for.
When a rival raises a price before a campaign and advertises a deep cut from the inflated figure, your history shows the real prior price. Useful context for your own pricing, and for a complaint if you choose to file one.
A short tactical discount today becomes your reference price for the next 30 days. Seeing the trailing low for each product before you approve a promotion keeps Black Friday and seasonal sales from being undercut by your own earlier markdowns.
Email alerts flag price changes as they happen, and the REST API lets you pull price history into your own ERP, PIM or banner tooling so the displayed reference price is generated from data, not from memory.
FastCompete provides pricing data and history. This page is general information, not legal advice. Confirm your obligations with a qualified adviser for each market.
If you sell to consumers in the EU, the national laws transposing it apply to your price reduction announcements in those markets, wherever your company is established.
The directive sets a floor of “at least 30 days”; Member States may require longer periods or add specific rules. Thirty days is the common baseline, not a universal ceiling.
An RRP is not your prior price. Comparing against a manufacturer's RRP is a separate claim and does not satisfy Article 6a when you announce a reduction of your own price.
FastCompete records and charts the price history you need and exposes it through exports and the API; you or your systems decide which figure to display. See price monitoring and dynamic pricing for how the data flows.
They solve different problems with the same data. MAP monitoring is about contractual price floors across your resellers; Omnibus is consumer law about how a discount is presented.
The 30-day window only works in your favour if the data already exists. Set up monitoring for your catalog and your competitors in minutes.