We read Tata CLiQ's running and sports shoe listings on 17 September 2026. Thirty-eight came back with a price and an MRP; 22 are seated here, Rs. 479 to Rs. 7,200. The problem with this shelf is not price, it is evidence. Sixteen of the 38 listings publish no rating and no rating count at all - including a Rs. 7,200 adidas with no model name in its title and three separate Asics listings. Among the 22 that do publish a rating, the median count is eleven, ten carry fewer than ten ratings, and the largest sample anywhere on the shelf is 186, on a Puma Galaxis Pro. One shoe, the Asian Wonder 23, appears three times at the identical Rs. 604 in three colours, each listing with its own empty rating field. We print a star pill only above twenty ratings.

We read both catalogues on the same afternoon: 47 running shoe listings on Myntra and 38 on Tata CLiQ, on 17 September 2026. The cleanest comparison the two offer is the Puma Skyrocket Lite 2, which sells at an identical Rs. 3,999 against an identical stated Rs. 4,999 on both - and carries 1,512 ratings on Myntra against 10 on Tata CLiQ. That gap holds across the shelf: the median rating count is 1,492 against 11, and 16 of the 38 Tata CLiQ listings publish no rating at all. Prices are a stocking story rather than a discount one - half of Myntra's shelf is its own HRX label and Red Tape, while Tata CLiQ carries the Nike, Asics, Skechers and Decathlon listings Myntra's pull returned none of. Tata CLiQ is Rs. 209 cheaper on one shared Puma.

We read Myntra's sling bag and handbag listings on 17 September 2026. Fifty-five came back with a price and an MRP; 24 are seated here, Rs. 525 to Rs. 3,499. Sorted by the size of the discount badge rather than by price, the shelf splits cleanly. The eight brands that run their own stores in India - adidas, Converse, Puma, MANGO, Marks & Spencer, Fastrack, Lino Perros and uppercase - post a median badge of 38 per cent and never exceed 50, and three listings carry no discount at all. Myntra's own in-house labels post a median of 68 per cent, and the loudest claim in the read is 84 per cent off a stated Rs. 3,999 on a Rs. 640 PU satchel - Rs. 500 above what Marks & Spencer actually charges for leather. Twelve of the 55 listings publish no rating at all.

We read both bag shelves on the same afternoon: 55 sling and handbag listings on Myntra and 73 on AJIO, on 17 September 2026. The first difference is not a price. Not one of the 73 AJIO listings publishes a customer rating - the fields come back empty on every bag - while 43 of 55 Myntra listings publish one, the largest carrying 19,047 ratings. With no second source to check a claim against, AJIO's badges run harder: a median of 61 per cent against Myntra's 45, no listing at all priced at its stated MRP, and eight Steve Madden bags all claiming exactly 65 per cent off. Where both sell the same bag the prices are close - the Fastrack sling is Rs. 968 on Myntra and Rs. 1,070 on AJIO against an identical stated Rs. 1,699.

We read Amazon's steel water bottle and vacuum flask listings on 17 September 2026. Fifty-five came back with a price and an MRP; 22 are seated here and every one of them is priced by the litre of capacity the seller states. Two things fall out. First, the number in a Milton model name is not a capacity: Handy 850 states 780 ml, Sipstar 1000 and Brim 1000 both state 875 ml, Aqua 1000 states 920 ml, Eiffel 1000 states 910 ml, Optima 350 states 340 ml - and Prudent 350 states 360 ml, the only one that runs the buyer's way. Second, once you divide, the shelf spreads twelve-fold: Rs. 236 a litre for a Solimo three-pack against Rs. 2,906 for a 160 ml Milton flask. The MRPs are mostly sane, with one 75 per cent badge as the exception.

We read both shelves on the same afternoon: 55 steel bottle and flask listings on Amazon and 137 on Flipkart, on 17 September 2026. The cleanest comparison the two offer is Milton's Eiffel 1000, which sells at Rs. 323 on both - and carries a stated MRP of Rs. 435 on Amazon and Rs. 505 on Flipkart, so the identical purchase shows a 26 per cent badge on one shelf and 36 on the other. Flipkart's median badge is 57 per cent against Amazon's 25, but that is catalogue composition rather than discounting: Milton's own median badge is 18 per cent on Amazon and 19 on Flipkart, and the loud claims all sit on unknown labels. On evidence the two are close - median rating counts of 3,155 and 2,817 - except that 37 Flipkart listings publish no rating at all.

We read Croma's wireless keyboard, mouse and router listings on 17 September 2026. Twenty-eight came back with a price and an MRP; 23 are seated here, Rs. 724 to Rs. 19,495. The finding that matters is a catalogue problem rather than a price one. Logitech's Pebble 2 combo appears four separate times at the identical Rs. 4,595 against the identical stated Rs. 5,995, one listing per colourway - and between those four listings there are three ratings: one shows 5.0 from a single rating, one shows 3.0 from two, and two publish nothing at all. Sort this category by rating and the same keyboard appears at the top, in the middle and nowhere. The discount badges split the same way as on a fashion shelf: Logitech never claims more than 35 per cent, while a Rs. 724 Lenovo combo claims 73.

We read 261 nightwear, night suit, pyjama, lounge pant and camisole listings across 91 brands on ajio.com on 16 September 2026, and split them into brands a shopper would recognise and the rest. The 85 recognised-brand listings have a median selling price of Rs. 525; the other 176 have a median of Rs. 500 — effectively the same money. But the unrecognised brands print a median MRP of Rs. 1,719 against Rs. 699, and a median discount badge of 66 percent against 33. The discount is manufactured in the list price, not in the price. The extreme is a Rs. 454 set carried against a stated Rs. 5,970 — 13.15 times. And not one of the 261 listings publishes a star rating or a review count, so the badge is the loudest signal on a shelf that offers no other.

We read 125 Diwali decoration listings on amazon.in on 16 September 2026 — string and curtain lights, diyas and urlis, rangoli stickers and door torans — and checked every discount badge against its own arithmetic. Five listings compute to 99 percent off, and all five state a maximum retail price exactly one hundred times their selling price: Rs. 474 against Rs. 47,400, Rs. 299 against Rs. 29,900, Rs. 169 against Rs. 16,900. We checked the ratio to three decimals on each and got 100.00x every time. Strip those five out and the shelf is a real one: a median badge of 64.5 percent, a deepest genuine badge of 93, and 106 of the 120 remaining listings selling under Rs. 500. The cheapest thing here is Rs. 69 and the dearest is Rs. 999.

AbhiBus is running 35 coupon codes and payment offers as of 16 September 2026, and we read every one of them from the merchant's own offers page — the code, the cap, the minimum booking value, the eligibility rule and the expiry date. The pattern worth knowing before you book: the deep offers are new-user offers. ASSURED pays a new user 20% off plus 20% cashback and an existing user 8% plus 8%. RJ100 on Rajasthan RSRTC is 50% off for a new user and 10% cashback up to Rs. 50 for everyone else. Eleven of the 35 codes expire on 30 September, SBICAB works only on Thursdays and Fridays, and RBL300 works on every day except Thursday.

We read 85 luggage listings on amazon.in on 16 September 2026 — 79 of them actual bags, from Rs. 265 to Rs. 6,799 — and found the same suitcases coming back again and again. Thirty-eight of the 79 sit inside fifteen shared rating pools, which is Amazon's own tell that several listings are one product in different colours. The clearest case: the Safari Genius Alley 55cm cabin trolley appears four times at Rs. 1,399, Rs. 1,499, Rs. 1,499 and Rs. 1,599, all four on the same 9,094 ratings and the same Rs. 6,999 MRP. One Gear duffle even prints a 56 per cent badge on one listing and 2 per cent on another.

We read 123 backpack and laptop bag listings — 53 on Myntra and 70 on Amazon — on 16 September 2026, and the price comparison ends in a tie. The median backpack costs Rs. 999 on Myntra and Rs. 989.50 on Amazon, both shelves carry a median discount badge of 60 per cent, and both sit at a 2.5x MRP multiple. Two products are priced to the same rupee on both sites: the Skybags Vesper at Rs. 999 and the Genie Berry at Rs. 1,499, each under an identical MRP and badge. The genuine differences are elsewhere — Amazon stocks luggage brands and rates almost everything (69 of 70 listings), while 14 of Myntra's 53 carry no rating at all, and its laptop bags are fashion bags at a Rs. 1,649 median.

We read 63 luggage listings on myntra.com on 16 September 2026 — 32 trolley cases and 31 duffels, from Rs. 250 to Rs. 63,890 — and compared them with the 79 bags we read on Amazon the same day. Myntra's badges are deeper: a median of 73 per cent against 69, and a median MRP multiple of 3.64x against 3.26x. The clearest case is a Teakwood Leathers cabin trolley at Rs. 1,099 under a printed Rs. 8,199 — a 7.46x list price, one of six Teakwood listings between Rs. 1,099 and Rs. 1,499 sitting under Rs. 8,199 and Rs. 9,999 MRPs. Only three bags on the whole shelf sell at their stated MRP: a Nike duffel, an Under Armour duffel and a Hidesign one.

Croma sells two gift instruments that look identical — both Rs. 500 to Rs. 50,000, both valid 365 days, both redeemable in store and online — and one of them keeps your unspent money while the other takes it. Croma's published terms say the Electronic Gift Voucher “has to be utilized in one single transaction and the balance will not be carried forward”, while the physical Gift Card “can be used multiple times until expiry” and can be reloaded. A refund on anything bought with either one comes back as an EGV, not as money. The MyGyftr vouchers banks hand out are stricter still: one use, five codes maximum, and any value above your bill is forfeited. Read 16 September 2026.

We read 133 wallet, belt and small-leather listings on tatacliq.com on 16 September 2026, from Rs. 319 to Rs. 5,280, and found the discount is a property of the brand rather than the product. United Colors of Benetton prints 55 per cent on all eighteen of its listings here; Red Tape prints 77 on all five, Teakwood Leathers 65 on all five and Hidesign 50 on all five. The evidence behind those badges is thin: fifty of the 133 listings publish no rating at all and the median count among the rest is three. Only fourteen listings clear ten ratings, and the deepest badges sit on the emptiest listings.