Is this misleading?

[hidinginthenightgarden]

I went to pick up a package today and the store had signs saying 25% off selected lines. I also noticed that a few items had sale stickers on them so picked up a couple of bits. I went to the socks and there were about 20 different ones to choose from and a sign in the middle saying 25% off selected lines. I think 2 also had sale stickers on them.
When I went to the till, there were no reductions (other than the sale stickered items). I asked if the socks were reduced as they had a sign in front of them. Turns out the stickered items were the ones with 25% off. Would anyone else find this misleading?
Around the shop there were these 25% off signs attached to most rails and maybe one or two stickered items amongst them. In my experience of every other shop this would mean that the stickered items were reduced and other items surrounding the sign had 25% off. What do others think? Is it misleading?

Yes

I think they get away with it due to the ‘selected lines’ bit, but yes, annoying and actually would put me off shopping there again knowing that they do that

Picture to demonstrate what I mean. None of the items in the picture have 25% off despite the sign in the middle of them.

I don't think so - I would always expect sale items to have a sticker on their label rather than a general sign.

No I would assume that only the stickered items had the discount, if there were no stickered items then yes, but as there was and as it says selected items, I don't see how it's misleading,

Unless it say '25% of everything' or similar, I'd assume it was just ones with stickers.

The discount is on 'Selected' items (so you have to look for the stickers. You saw that some had discount stickers, some didn't. I don't understand why you'd think everything was reduced!

If there were several stickered items on the line, then I would agree that stickered items were obviously the sale items. When it was 2 out of 20 pairs of socks though, it definitley looked like they had been reduced seperatley.

No, it says selected lines, so I'd only expected the clearly identified items to have been reduced.

It's misleading insofar as that sign is designed to grab your attention from a distance, with 'selected' in much fainter type - so it will get you over there and looking at the products before you realise that not all of them are discounted. I agree with PPs that once I had seen 'selected' I'd expect to see a sticker or something to differentiate the sale products.

It does say selected lines only and I would assume that the selected lines would be highlighted with either a sticker or a hanger card.

Only 10% of the stock under a sale sign has to be the price stated, so for example if you found a top in a £10 and under sale section but when you got to the till it was £20, as long as the most of the stock is £10 and under its not 'false advertising' and many people used to try and claim when I worked in retail.

@ItsOnlyBloodyBread I came across this years ago when dd was small.
There was a huge wall of toys in Tesco at half price. Dd has great fun spending her Christmas money only when we got to checkout we discovered almost all her purchases were full price.
She was Quite tearful and the cashier called the manager over who told us the rule about displaying offers. He said he didn’t agree with it at all, especially with toys because it almost always resulted in upset children.
We hadn’t made a fuss and were explaining to dd she needed to choose one thing instead. Manager said, “no choose two” and discounted it for her anyway.

It’s always stuck with me and I scrutinise any offers now.