The encyclopedia · Advertising & PR · Marketing decision · 2025
Hasegawa Sangyo's furniture 'regular price' never existed — the discount was built on air
A Hokkaido furniture retailer sold 53 items against a 'regular price' with no sales history behind it. The FTC ordered it to stop.
Hasegawa Sangyo Co., Ltd. · 2025-02-28
What happened
From at least mid-2024, Hasegawa Sangyo's online shop Suideco (スイデコ) listed 53 furniture products — including the rotating office chair ミッテ2 — with a '通常価格' (regular price) set above the selling price. The chair, for example, was shown at 'regular price ¥25,190 (10% tax) / selling price ¥18,590 (10% tax)', framing the gap as a genuine bargain.
The 'regular price' had no basis: the products had not been sold at that price during any recent substantial period, so the advertised discount was fictitious. The display ran at least from 18 May 2024 to 1 August 2024.
On 28 February 2025 the Japan Fair Trade Commission (Hokkaido office) with the Consumer Affairs Agency issued a corrective order under Article 7(1) of the Premiums and Representations Act. The act violated Article 5(2) — presenting transaction terms as significantly more favourable to consumers than they really were.
The order required Hasegawa Sangyo to publicise that its representation violated the Act, stop the practice, and put in place recurrence-prevention measures communicated to officers and staff.
Why it happened
- A 'regular price' with no sales history turned an ordinary price into a fabricated bargain
- Repeating the trick across 53 products made the whole shop look permanently discounted
- The discount was the pitch, so the misleading price carried every sale
The lesson
A 'regular price' is a claim about what the product normally costs. When nothing has ever sold at that price, the discount it anchors is invented — and in Japan that is a corrective order.
Aftermath
The corrective order required the retailer to notify consumers that its price display had violated the Act and to establish measures preventing recurrence. The case is a routine 有利誤認 enforcement, notable for the breadth of the fiction — 53 items all carrying regular prices that had never been charged.
Sources
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