Displaying a higher reference price to make the current price feel like a discount.
Price anchoring is the cognitive effect behind compare-at pricing: shoppers judge the current price against the anchor. Legally, the anchor must be genuine — a real prior price, not an imagined MSRP. Ethically, sustained fake anchors erode trust and, on Shopify, they trigger Google Merchant Center misrepresentation warnings when the crawler sees a permanent 'sale'. Use compare-at for genuine promotions with a defined end date and clear the field when the promotion ends.
