Countdown to the CMA consultation on price transparency deadline: have your say on the draft guidance

The Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) is consulting on draft guidance for businesses on price transparency in the context of invitations to purchase. The consultation closes at 23:59 on 8 September 2025 so interested parties must respond soon.

What is the context to the consultation?

The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCC) is a comprehensive piece of legislation aimed at enhancing consumer protection and promoting fair competition in the UK. The DMCC brings in a number of changes to consumer regulation, including changes to the unfair commercial practices regime, to fake reviews, and to subscription contracts. It also introduces new rules in relation to drip pricing and partitioned pricing, to make sure that the pricing offered to consumers is not misleading and to enable consumers to compare prices on a like-for-like basis. The consumer law enforcement regime under the DMCC and the unfair commercial practices regime came into force on 6 April 2025.

Section 230 of the DMCC relates to price transparency. It requires traders to provide consumers with certain material information from the point of the invitation to purchase. This material information includes the total price of the product. Where there are mandatory fees which are not fixed, information about how the variable fees will be calculated must be provided to consumers at that point in the customer journey. In April 2025, the CMA issued guidance on unfair commercial practices. The guidance covers the material information which the CMA considers must be supplied to consumers and the requirement to present them with the total price. The guidance also considers drip pricing.

On 3 July 2025, the CMA started a consultation on additional guidance to help businesses comply with the price transparency provisions of the DMCC in the context of invitations to purchase. The CMA consultation document explains that if businesses do not display their products accurately, or leave out information, it can make their products appear cheaper than they are. The CMA has advised that pricing needs to be meaningful, realistic, and attainable for consumers. Consumers must be able to calculate the final price at an early point in their purchase journey and businesses may need to make changes to their current pricing models to achieve this. The CMA sees price transparency as essential to protect consumers, avoid nasty surprises at check-out, and to foster a level playing field for fair-dealing businesses.

The draft guidance was produced by the CMA due to the high volumes of responses and questions from traders on how the DMCC applies to pricing information. Once the price transparency guidance is finalised, the existing guidance on material pricing information in the unfair commercial practices guidance will be replaced with a cross reference to the new guidance.

What concerns are we seeing with the CMA draft guidance on price transparency and how might it affect your business?

The draft guidance explains what traders need to do in order to make sure they provide the total price of the product in each invitation to purchase. This is done by way of examples of what lawful practices look like.

When the CMA last consulted on the CMA's draft guidance on unfair commercial practices, many responses related to how the DMCC applies to pricing information. Businesses made submissions in relation to the presentation of delivery charges. Concerns were raised around basket-based charges, fixed delivery charges, delivery costs being determined by the requested customer delivery location, and free delivery on orders above a certain value. This in part, prompted the draft guidance on price transparency.

The draft guidance contains detail around how traders must present delivery charge information in their invitations to purchase. The draft guidance recommends using a 'floating basket' on webpages, which displays the total price and which appears prominently on each page so as to be visible to the consumer at all times as they are browsing.

Businesses need to be aware that this requirement to present delivery charge information raises an operational issue. Businesses may need to make changes to their website build and to their processes and systems to allow it to dynamically change in real time as consumers add or remove items from their basket. Businesses should start talking to their systems providers now to find out the likely cost of these changes and to understand how long it might take to make them. In parallel, businesses need to be talking to their marketing teams to agree on how product prices are presented to consumers at all stages in the purchase process and in each media (television, radio, social media, website pages etc). Following that review, if your business has concerns with the requirements of the draft price transparency guidance, you should provide a response to the CMA's consultation.

It's worth noting that CMA guidance is not legally binding. It is designed to illustrate how the law may apply in practice but it will always be the DMCC that takes precedence. Nevertheless, businesses must familiarise themselves with the requirements of CMA guidance to reduce the risk of direct enforcement by the CMA.

What opportunities are there to engage with the CMA during the consultation process?

The CMA is seeking to actively engage with businesses and interested stakeholders during the consultation period. There have been webinars and roundtables during July with industry bodies and trade associations. There will be a final roundtable on 2 September 2025. You can register for this event on the CMA website.

If your business has concerns with the draft price transparency guidance you should submit a written response to the CMA before the 8 September 2025 deadline. In the consultation document, the CMA says it wants to know from businesses whether the illustrative examples in the guidance are clear, whether further examples are needed, or whether there are alternative ways in which businesses may be able to comply with the DMCC. Feedback received from the consultation will influence the final guidance on price transparency, so now is the time to have your say. The final guidance is expected in Autumn 2025.

Will responses be published in full by the CMA?

The CMA will publish a non-confidential version of the consultation responses on its website. If your response contains information which is confidential or sensitive you need to submit a non-confidential version as part of the response and explain why this is required. Given that the CMA is subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 it is important to be specific about any aspects of the response which are considered by your business to be confidential.

Some businesses may choose to submit responses through an industry body or trade association. It's worth investigating if any bodies or associations of which your business may be a member is intending on submitting a response and you can contribute to a joint response.

How worried should businesses be about getting price transparency wrong?

As we explained in our recent article, the DMCC provides the CMA with new direct enforcement powers, including the power to issue fines up to £300,000 or 10% of the business' turnover, whichever is higher.

We know from the CMA's approach to consumer protection guidance that the CMA is going to focus on the "more egregious breaches" during the first 12 months of enforcement. The CMA's approach document says that the CMA will focus its early action on banned practices, including in relation to fees which are hidden until late in the purchase process, which hinder effective price competition. So it is clear that breaching the new price transparency rules is likely to fall within the category of an "egregious breach".

We know from the CMA's enforcement guidance that enforcement under the DMCC is more likely and will be severe. Businesses must familiarise themselves with the DMCC and the draft price transparency guidance now, and engage with the CMA and with industry bodies and trade associations where they have concerns.

Do you want to know more about the consultation on price transparency? Or more about the DMCC and how it might impact on your business?

Simply reach out to Ashley Borthwick, Sheilah Mackie, Andrew Kimble or Andrew Westbrook.