Consumer Agency: "22% of Price Information on Comparison Sites Differs from Actual Prices"

[Asia Economy Reporter Jeon Jinyoung] It has been found that 22% of the price information posted on price comparison sites such as Naver Shopping, Danawa, and Shoppinghow differ from the actual purchase prices.

According to the Korea Consumer Agency on the 29th, an investigation into product and price information on sales sites linked to seven major price comparison sites (Naver Shopping, Kakao Shopping, Shoppinghow, Nate Shopping, Danawa, Enuri, Kucha, and Happy Shopping) revealed that the 'price discrepancy rate'?where the price on the comparison site does not match the actual price on the sales site?reached 22.0% of the surveyed products. Additionally, 2.2% of the products on the price comparison sites were entirely different from those on the sales sites, and 5.4% of the products were unavailable for purchase on the sales sites due to being out of stock or other reasons.

Among the 256 products with price discrepancies, 78.5% (201 products) had actual purchase prices on the linked sales sites that were higher than the prices provided on the price comparison sites. In categories such as TVs and refrigerators, 49.3% (99 products) were marked as free shipping on the price comparison sites, but additional shipping or installation fees were charged on the actual sales sites, which was the most common case. Following this, 44.7% (90 products) had higher product prices themselves.

A survey of consumers who have experience using price comparison sites showed that the most important factor when selecting and using these sites was 'information accuracy (84.0%)'. Furthermore, 75.1% of consumers reported experiencing inconvenience or dissatisfaction when using price comparison sites. The most common reasons for dissatisfaction were 'price on the comparison site differs from the actual price (50.4%)', followed by 'unable to order due to product being out of stock (29.6%)', and 'product on the comparison site differs from the actual product (20.3%)'.

Additionally, 67.0% (670 people) of consumers were unaware that products sold by overseas sellers could be displayed on price comparison sites, and 31.6% (316 people) did not know that prices could fluctuate due to customs, value-added tax, and exchange rates when purchasing products from overseas sellers.

Based on the results of this investigation, the Korea Consumer Agency plans to recommend to price comparison site operators the following: ▲ improvement measures to enhance the accuracy of price comparison information ▲ strengthening the display standards for price information ▲ provision of actual seller and open market operator identity information ▲ enhanced labeling and provision of important information for overseas direct purchase products.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.