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.

Guide

Omnibus & Price Display Rules in Germany

By Compliance Editorial Team Updated July 2, 2026 4 min read

Omnibus Directive

The EU Omnibus Directive tightened the rules on how traders present price reductions, review authenticity and consumer information. Germany implements the price-display elements primarily through the Preisangabenverordnung (PAngV), the Price Indication Ordinance. For a PrestaShop merchant selling to German customers, the headline is the 30-day prior-price rule – and Germany’s active enforcement culture makes getting it right particularly important.

What Omnibus requires

The Omnibus changes address several areas, but the one that most affects everyday PrestaShop pricing is the prior-price rule. When you announce a price reduction, you must indicate the prior price, defined as the lowest price you applied during a defined period – at least the 30 days before the reduction. This stops the practice of inflating a “was” price to make a discount look larger than it really is.

Omnibus also strengthens rules on the authenticity of consumer reviews (you must state whether and how you ensure reviews come from real purchasers) and adds transparency duties around ranking and marketplace information. For the full cross-EU picture, see the Omnibus law hub and our complete Omnibus guide.

How Germany implements it: the PAngV

Germany’s Preisangabenverordnung (PAngV) is the Price Indication Ordinance that governs how prices must be shown to consumers. It carries the Omnibus prior-price requirement into German law: when advertising a price reduction, you must state the lowest price of the preceding 30 days as the reference against which the discount is measured. The PAngV also covers long-standing German price-display duties, such as showing total prices and, where relevant, unit prices.

Because the PAngV is the concrete rulebook German authorities and competitors apply, your PrestaShop pricing display needs to line up with it precisely – not just with the general idea of the Omnibus rule.

Applying the 30-day rule in PrestaShop

When you show a discount, display the lowest price from the previous 30 days as the reference “prior price”.
Do not use a recent, artificially higher price as the strike-through reference if a lower price applied within the window.
Keep a price history so you can prove the correct prior price for any promotion.
Show clear total prices, including where unit pricing is required, in line with the PAngV.
Be careful with rolling or stacked promotions, countdowns and “lowest price ever” claims, which can conflict with the 30-day reference if not handled correctly.

Several PrestaShop pricing modules can track price history and render an Omnibus-compliant prior price automatically. Whatever tool you use, the requirement is the same: the strike-through or “was” price you show must reflect the genuine lowest price of the preceding 30 days.

Enforcement in Germany

Germany has a distinctive enforcement environment. Alongside public market surveillance, which is run by the federal states (Länder), German law allows competitors and qualified consumer and industry associations to pursue traders for unfair competition, including misleading price advertising. This means pricing mistakes can attract a warning letter (Abmahnung) from a competitor or association, not only regulator attention. That mechanism makes price-display compliance in Germany a practical commercial risk, not just a regulatory formality.

The reliable takeaway is qualitative: incorrect prior-price displays are a well-known trigger for challenges in Germany, so accuracy in the strike-through price is worth the effort. Present prices in German, show total prices clearly, and make sure your discount references are defensible.

A note on the cancellation button

While it is separate from the price-display rules, German merchants should also remember the cancellation-button requirement (Kündigungsbutton, §312k BGB) for contracts concluded online that can be terminated, such as subscriptions. It is a good example of Germany layering national consumer-protection detail on top of EU rules, and it belongs on any German compliance review alongside your PAngV pricing checks.

German specifics change over time. Confirm current requirements with the relevant Land authority and current PAngV wording before relying on this guide.

What Omnibus requires

How Germany implements it: the PAngV

Applying the 30-day rule in PrestaShop

Enforcement in Germany

A note on the cancellation button

Related

Related reading

How to Display a Compliant Sale Price in PrestaShop

The Cancellation Button in Germany (§312k BGB)

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

Omnibus & Price-Reduction Rules in France