As shoppers look to score Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals this month, Australia's consumer watchdog is keeping a close eye on potentially misleading conduct through the sales period.
Australians often spend close to $7 billion in the pre-Christmas shopping events, which fall on 27 and 30 November this year.
The watchdog says fine-print disclaimers for 'sitewide' or 'storewide' claims are not sufficient to qualify them, and when they're inaccurate, countdown timers can create a false sense of urgency.
It's the ACCC's third sweep of its kind, following similar investigations in 2024 and 2025 that led to penalties for companies that made false and misleading representations about their sales.
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However, the ACCC says this is the first time the sweep will examine companies' practices across multiple channels, including websites, emails and social media.
It will also assess promotional practices over time and look for any improvements in compliance with consumer law in the past three years.
The ACCC has also encouraged consumers to focus on the final price of a product rather than promotional claims, check for any exclusions or conditions, and compare prices between retailers.
"Consumers should be able to trust that the advertised savings and discount prices are genuine, but we know some businesses use tactics to mislead consumers into thinking they are getting a bargain even when they are not," ACCC deputy chair Catriona Lowe said.
The ACCC also issued a warning about consumers buying products from illegitimate sellers and fake online shopfronts.
In the first nine months of 2026, 58.7 per cent of reports to the government's ScamWatch program that included financial loss were from buying and selling scams.
ScamWatch warned that scammers will impersonate legitimate businesses and familiar platforms to advertise fake products such as cars, second-hand clothing and concert tickets.
It also said artificial intelligence was making these scams "cheaper, faster and more convincing" with scammers using AI to generate product images, build websites and create compelling copy.
The ACCC's National Anti-Scam Centre has recorded over 20,000 successful takedowns of scam websites (many posing as online shopping sites) so far in 2026.
Last year, the ACCC also issued a warning about 'ghost stores', which falsely claimed they were local Australian businesses with closing-down sales and were instead based overseas and drop-shipping low-quality products to consumers.
However, ScamWatch notes that Australia has seen a slight decrease in the number of scam reports from January to September this year compared with the same period in 2025. Reported losses have also decreased by 3 per cent to just over $250 million.
