"70% off" only means something if the original price was ever real. Inflated "was" prices are one of the oldest tricks in online retail, and once you know what to actually check, they're pretty easy to catch — it just takes a habit most shoppers never build.
Browser extensions and price-tracking sites that log historical pricing on major retailers let you see the real trend over weeks or months, not just today's snapshot. If a product has genuinely sat at the "discounted" price for a while, with only the occasional spike right before a "sale" begins, that spike is your answer — the discount is cosmetic, not real.
A listed MRP that no retailer has ever actually charged is a real red flag. This is sometimes called a phantom MRP — a number set artificially high purely so the eventual "discount" looks dramatic on paper, even though nobody was ever meant to pay that original figure.
If the exact same product is meaningfully cheaper somewhere else with zero "sale" framing attached to it at all, the price you're looking at probably isn't a special deal — it's just closer to the actual market rate, dressed up to look like a bargain.
If the same "limited time" discount keeps reappearing every few weeks like clockwork, it isn't limited at all. It's just the regular promotional price, wrapped in urgency language designed to make you feel like you'd be missing out by waiting.
A genuine discount is one you can verify against real price history, not just a strikethrough number next to a new one. Two minutes of checking before checkout is usually enough to tell the difference between an actual saving and the illusion of one.