Does the Omnibus 30-day rule apply to flash sales?

Short answer: yes. A flash sale — a short, time-limited discount — is still an announcement of a price reduction, so the Omnibus 30-day lowest-prior-price rule applies just as it does to any other sale. The brevity of the offer does not exempt it. Under Article 6a of the Price Indication Directive, as amended by the Omnibus Directive (2019/2161, applying from 28 May 2022), whenever you announce a price reduction you must indicate the prior price, defined as the lowest price you applied during at least the 30 days before the reduction. Nothing in the rule turns on how long the reduced price lasts. A two-hour flash sale, a 24-hour deal, and a two-week promotion are treated the same way for the purpose of the reference price. What this means in practice The struck-through "was" price in your flash sale must be the genuine lowest price you charged in the preceding 30 days — not an inflated figure introduced just before the event, and not the recommended retail price dressed up as your own prior price. If you show "−40% for 3 hours only", that 40% must be calculated against the real 30-day low. Do not raise the price shortly before the flash sale to make the discount look bigger — the reference is the lowest price in the last 30 days, so the bump is ignored (or worse, exposes the display as misleading).Keep a price history. If challenged, you must be able to evidence that the reference price was genuinely the lowest applied over the 30-day window.Percentage and "save €X" wording count too, not just was/now displays — the same 30-day basis applies to how the reduction is expressed.Back-to-back flash sales are a red flag. If a product is almost always "on flash sale", the reference price you keep striking through may not reflect a genuine higher prior price, which regulators can treat as misleading. A quick worked example A gadget sold at €50 for the last 30 days. You run a 4-hour flash sale at €35 and advertise "was €50, now €35". This is fine: €50 was genuinely the lowest price in the prior 30 days. But if the gadget had actually been €40 for most of that month and you quietly lifted it to €50 the day before, the prior price is €40 — and advertising "was €50" during the flash sale would be non-compliant. For the full mechanics, see our Omnibus overview and complete Omnibus guide. The rule is about honesty of the reference price, and a flash sale is no exception. This answer is provided for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. National implementations and derogations vary and change over time; consult a qualified lawyer in the relevant jurisdiction before making compliance decisions for your business.

Which Country's Rules Apply When I Sell Across the EU?

The short answer: EU-wide regulations give you a single baseline that applies everywhere, but a number of national obligations follow the country you are selling into. When you ship across the EU, you meet the EU rules once, then add the destination country's specifics for each market you serve. EU-wide regulations are the baseline Regulations such as the GPSR (product safety), the Omnibus rules (price transparency and reviews), the PPWR (packaging) and the European Accessibility Act apply across all 27 member states. Their core requirements - a safe product, a responsible person in the EU, honest price reductions, accessible e-commerce - do not change from one country to the next. Get these right and you have your common foundation for the whole single market. National transposition adds detail Where EU rules take the form of directives, each country writes them into national law and can add detail. Germany's price-display rules sit in the Preisangabenverordnung; Italy's consumer rules are in the Codice del Consumo; Spain uses the Texto Refundido consumer statute; France layers on strong consumer-protection practice. The substance is harmonised, but the exact wording, disclosures and enforcement bodies are national. Language follows the customer Consumer information must generally be in the language of the destination country: French for France (the Toubon law), Italian for Italy, Spanish (and sometimes co-official regional languages) for Spain, German for Germany. This covers product descriptions, safety warnings, instructions and the required pre-contractual information. A single English storefront is not enough for these markets. EPR is per destination country Extended Producer Responsibility registrations are national and depend on where your goods and packaging end up. If you ship to Germany, you register in the LUCID packaging register before selling. If you ship to France, you deal with the REP system and a unique identifier via ADEME, plus packaging EPR. Italy uses CONAI; Spain applies Royal Decree 1055/2022. You need the right EPR registration for each destination country you supply, not one blanket registration. In practice Meet the EU-wide regulations once as your baseline.For each destination country, add local language, transposition detail and EPR registration.Confirm specifics with the named national authority, as they change over time. See our country hubs for France, Italy, Spain and Germany for the destination-specific detail.

The Omnibus 30-day rule explained

The "30-day rule" is the best-known part of the Omnibus Directive. It governs how you must present the "before" price whenever you advertise a discount, and it has applied across the EU since 28 May 2022. What the rule actually says Under the amended Article 6a of the Price Indication Directive, any announcement of a price reduction must state the prior price. The prior price is defined as the lowest price the trader applied during at least the 30 days before the reduction. So the "was" figure in a "was / now" display is not the last price you charged, nor a recommended retail price — it is the lowest price that was actually in force at any point in the preceding 30 days. Worked example: a straightforward sale A pair of headphones sold at €80 continuously for the last two months. You launch a sale at €60. The lowest price in the previous 30 days was €80, so "was €80, now €60" is correct and compliant. Shoppers see a true saving from a price the product genuinely held. Worked example: a price that moved around Now imagine the same headphones were €70 for three weeks, then €80 for one week, and you advertise a sale at €65. The lowest price in the last 30 days was €70, so the prior price you must reference is €70, not €80. The compliant display is "was €70, now €65". Using €80 would overstate the saving and breach the rule. Worked example: the "inflate then discount" trap A classic non-compliant pattern: an item sits at €40 for weeks, you raise it to €60 for two days, then advertise "was €60, now €45". Because the lowest price in the last 30 days was €40, the honest reference is €40 — and €45 is higher than that. There is no genuine reduction, and presenting €60 as the "was" price is precisely the manipulation the rule was written to stop. Progressive discounts For discounts that deepen in stages during one campaign — say 10%, then 20%, then 30% off — the prior price stays fixed to the lowest price applied before the first reduction. You do not re-baseline at each stage. If the pre-sale lowest price was €100, every stage references €100, so the deepest stage shows "was €100, now €70", not "was €80, now €70". What this means in PrestaShop PrestaShop's default price display strikes through the base or list price, which may not equal the 30-day lowest. To comply, the "was" figure your theme renders needs to be driven by the lowest price genuinely applied in the previous 30 days — usually via a module or override that stores price history. Review your specific-price and catalogue-price rules so a struck-through figure is never a price shoppers were never charged. The full walkthrough is in the complete Omnibus guide, and the concept itself is defined in our reference-price FAQ. Educational content, not legal advice. Verify against the official text and your national implementing rules.

What is the 'prior price' or reference price?

Under the Omnibus Directive, the prior price (often called the reference price) is the figure a discount is measured against. It is defined as the lowest price the trader applied during at least the 30 days before the price reduction. This matters because the "was" figure in a "was / now" display must equal that 30-day lowest — not the most recent price, and not a manufacturer's recommended retail price. If your product was €90 then briefly €100 in the last month, the reference price for a new sale is €90, because that was the lowest price actually in force. For progressive discounts that deepen over a single campaign, the reference price is anchored once — to the lowest price before the first reduction — and does not reset at each stage. This stops each new markdown looking like a fresh saving from an already-reduced figure. Genuinely individual prices, such as an automatically applied members-only rate, are treated differently from general reductions announced to all shoppers, which are firmly within the rule. For the calculation with worked examples, see the 30-day rule explained; the short definition also lives in our Omnibus hub. Educational only, not legal advice. Verify against the official EUR-Lex text.

What does the Omnibus Directive say about fake reviews?

The Omnibus Directive tackles reviews in two ways: a transparency duty and an outright ban on fakery. The transparency duty If your shop displays consumer reviews, you must state whether and how you ensure that the published reviews come from consumers who actually bought or used the product. If you only publish reviews from verified purchasers, say so clearly. If you do not verify, you must not create the impression that the reviews are verified. The fake-review ban Certain practices are added to the blacklist of unfair commercial practices, meaning they are prohibited in all circumstances with no case-by-case assessment. These include submitting or commissioning fake reviews or endorsements, claiming reviews are from real users when steps to verify were not taken, and manipulating reviews — for example suppressing genuine negative ones — to promote a product. What to do in your shop Add a short statement near your reviews explaining how you verify authenticity.Prefer a review module that can restrict submissions to verified buyers.Never buy, write or commission reviews, and never hide genuine negative feedback. See the review section of the complete Omnibus guide for PrestaShop module notes. Educational only, not legal advice. Verify against the official text.

EU Law

The Omnibus Directive (EU) 2019/2161

By Compliance Editorial Team Updated July 2, 2026 3 min read

In effect from: May 28, 2022

The Omnibus Directive — formally Directive (EU) 2019/2161 — is the EU’s “better enforcement and modernisation” reform of consumer protection law. It does not stand alone: it amends four existing directives at once, which is why it is nicknamed “Omnibus”. National rules implementing it have applied from 28 May 2022 across the EU, so any PrestaShop merchant selling to EU consumers is already within its scope.

The four directives it amends

Directive 93/13/EEC — unfair terms in consumer contracts.
Directive 98/6/EC — the Price Indication Directive (home of the new 30-day prior-price rule).
Directive 2005/29/EC — the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (fake reviews, hidden ads and personalised pricing land here).
Directive 2011/83/EU — the Consumer Rights Directive (marketplace and pre-contractual information).

Headline rules for online shops

Price reductions and the prior price

The amended Article 6a of the Price Indication Directive requires that any announcement of a price reduction states the prior price — defined as the lowest price the trader applied during at least the 30 days before the reduction. For progressive discounts, the prior price is the lowest applied before the first reduction. The aim is to stop fake “was / now” pricing where a shop briefly inflates a price so a later “discount” looks bigger than it is.

Consumer reviews

If your shop displays product reviews, you must state whether and how you ensure they come from consumers who actually bought or used the product. Submitting or commissioning fake reviews and fake endorsements is now expressly banned via the UCPD blacklist of practices.

Ranking transparency

Where you let shoppers search or sort products, you must disclose the main parameters that determine ranking and their relative importance, and clearly label paid placement or advertising that influences ranking.

Personalised pricing

If a price shown to a consumer was personalised on the basis of automated decision-making or profiling, you must tell them so before they buy.

Online marketplaces

Marketplaces must tell consumers whether a third-party seller is a trader or not, and who therefore carries consumer-rights obligations. Most single-brand PrestaShop shops are the trader themselves, but multi-vendor setups need to take this seriously.

Who it affects

The Omnibus rules apply to traders selling to consumers in the EU, regardless of where the shop is established, whenever the shop directs its activity at EU consumers. That includes almost every commercial PrestaShop store with EU customers — B2B-only shops are largely outside consumer-protection scope, but few shops are purely B2B in practice.

Penalties

Member States must make available fines of at least 4% of the trader’s annual turnover in the Member State(s) concerned for widespread cross-border infringements — or, where turnover information is unavailable, up to at least €2 million. National authorities set the detail, so exact figures and enforcement appetite vary by country. See our Germany country guide for one national example.

Where to go next

Complete Omnibus compliance guide — the full pillar guide with worked examples and a checklist.
The Omnibus 30-day rule explained — deep dive on prior-price calculation.
Omnibus in Germany — national implementation notes.

This page is educational and not legal advice. Always verify the current position against the official EUR-Lex text and your national implementing law.

Official reference: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2019/2161/oj

The four directives it amends

Headline rules for online shops

Price reductions and the prior price

Consumer reviews

Ranking transparency

Personalised pricing

Online marketplaces

Who it affects

Penalties

Where to go next

Guides & resources for this law

Related reading

How to Display a Compliant Sale Price in PrestaShop

Does the Omnibus 30-day rule apply to flash sales?

Omnibus & Price-Reduction Rules in France

Omnibus & Price-Reduction Rules in Italy