We read Vijay Sales' water heater shelf on 30 September 2026 - 22 listings - and divided each price by the tank capacity its own title states. A 25-litre storage geyser works out at Rs. 396 a litre. A 3-litre instant heater runs to Rs. 1,500 a litre - 3.8 times as much. The sharpest number on the shelf: the single 10-litre heater costs Rs. 10,100 while a 25-litre tank costs Rs. 9,899, so the smaller tank costs more actual money than one holding two and a half times the water. The discount badge is no guide to any of this - the cheapest litre and the dearest litre on the shelf both advertise 30% off, and the largest badge in the read, 59%, sits mid-table. Vijay Sales published no rating on any of the 22 listings.

We read AJIO's bath towel, hand towel, bath mat, door mat and bathrobe shelves on 30 September 2026 - 152 distinct listings - and grouped them by aisle. The five median discount badges read 29.5% on hand towels, 36.5% on bath towels, 44% on bath mats, 59% on door mats and 75% on bathrobes. Not one of the 28 bathrobes sells at less than 67% off. The reason is in the MRP column: the robe shelf states a median MRP of exactly 4.00 times its selling price, where bath towels state 1.58 times. AJIO published no star average and no rating count on any of the 152 listings, so the badge is the only differentiating number a buyer gets - and one seller holding 25 of the 39 door mats prices them anywhere from Rs. 120 to Rs. 369 a mat behind badges that move the other way.

We read both study-table shelves on the same afternoon, 30 September 2026 - 48 listings on Amazon and 41 on Tata CLiQ. Amazon's median is Rs. 2,399 and Tata CLiQ's is Rs. 5,799, but that gap is stock mix rather than price: Amazon's four cheapest listings are folding bed tables and it has 19 listings under Rs. 2,000 to Tata CLiQ's one. Eleven pairs on Tata CLiQ's shelf share an identical price and MRP because they are one desk in two finishes, and 24 of its 41 listings are a single brand - so 41 results is nearer 30 products. And the evidence gap is the widest we have recorded: Amazon's largest rating count here is 8,632, while every rating count on Tata CLiQ's shelf fits in the list 1 to 5.

We read Amazon's whole 'dustbin' shelf on 30 September 2026 - 47 listings, 14 of them boxes of garbage bags - and divided the 33 real bins by the capacity they print. The cheapest litre on the shelf is Rs. 25.90, on a 25-litre plastic bin at Rs. 647. The dearest under Rs. 1,000 is Rs. 139.80, on a 5-litre steel bin at Rs. 699. That is a factor of 5.4 for the same job, and the discount badges point the wrong way: the bin advertising 28% off costs Rs. 25.90 a litre and the bin advertising 70% off costs Rs. 119. The most-rated listing in the entire read, with 10,715 ratings, is a Rs. 170 bin that goes in a car cup holder. Twenty-four bins seated, every price read the same afternoon.

We read Myntra's shoe-rack shelf on 30 September 2026 - 46 tiles, 40 of them shoe racks - and every single one prints its own tier count, so the unit price is computable for all of them. The prices barely move: Rs. 480 to Rs. 1,082, a 2.3x spread. The rate per tier moves four times as much: Rs. 88.30 to Rs. 360.70. The dearest rack on the shelf holds three tiers; the cheapest rate belongs to a nine-tier rack at Rs. 795. And 19 of the 40 listings are just eight racks sold in several colours - four tiles are the same Rs. 619 Fabura, publishing 22 ratings, 7, none and none. Which feedback you see depends on which colour you click. Twenty-four racks seated, every price read the same day.

We read both men's wallet shelves on the same morning, 30 September 2026 - 32 listings on Myntra and 40 on AJIO. A listing named 'Puma Leather Stripe Bi-Fold Wallet' costs Rs. 1,374 on both sites, against the same Rs. 2,499 stated MRP and the same 45% badge. A second Puma model is Rs. 1,379 on Myntra and Rs. 1,264 on AJIO. Across the shelves as a whole Myntra is cheaper - a Rs. 519 median against Rs. 698 - but that is assortment, not pricing: AJIO stocks up to Rs. 4,500 where Myntra stops at Rs. 1,379. AJIO published no rating on any of its 40 listings; Myntra published one on 26 of 32, at a median of 1,595 ratings. On sweatshirts the same morning, the price result ran the other way.

We read Amazon's whole 'whiteboard' shelf on 30 September 2026 - 48 listings - and divided every one that prints a size by the area it states. Six listings state the same 12 square feet, 3 feet by 4 feet, and they cost Rs. 1,899, Rs. 1,899, Rs. 2,069, Rs. 3,225, Rs. 3,999 and Rs. 16,221. Magnetic surfaces explain part of that spread but not the top of it. The cheapest surface on the shelf is not a board at all - three vinyl wall stickers run Rs. 24 to Rs. 31 a square foot against a median of Rs. 197 across framed boards - and the most expensive is a small framed 60 x 40 cm board at Rs. 599.60 a square foot. And 11 of 48 listings state an MRP that cannot be right: two at exactly 100 times their price, nine below it.

We read Amazon's whole 'stapler' shelf on 30 September 2026 - 48 listings, 29 of them Kangaro - and matched the model numbers printed in the titles. Three separate tiles sell a stapler printed HP-45, at Rs. 245, Rs. 268 and Rs. 298, carrying 2,044, 751 and 936 ratings. Only the Rs. 298 one states a reason for the difference: it bundles four packets of pins. Two tiles sell an HP-10 at Rs. 234 and Rs. 260, and there the cheaper one has 13 ratings against 708. And 19 of the 48 listings give you nothing to compute a discount from - nine state an MRP below their own selling price, ten state none at all, and one states Rs. 14,020 against a Rs. 279 price. Twenty staplers seated, all read the same afternoon.

We read Myntra's water bottle, vacuum flask, sipper, kids bottle and steel bottle shelves on 30 September 2026 - 104 distinct listings - and sorted them by who is selling. The 33 listings from Milton, Milton Baby, Prestige, Cello and Stanley carry a median badge of 20%, and the biggest discount any of them advertises is 46%. The other 71 listings carry a median of 37% and run up to 71%. The shelf's median stated MRP is only 1.40 times the selling price, so a 60%-plus badge here almost always means an MRP several times larger than the norm. It is also the second-least-discounted of the ten Myntra shelves we read that morning, ahead only of hair care - bedsheets ran a 75% median badge on the same day. And five separate Go24 listings publish the identical 2,043 ratings at four different badge percentages.

We read Flipkart's trimmer shelf on 29 September 2026 - 213 distinct listings from Rs. 249 to Rs. 15,805, with 26 seated here. Sixteen of them carry the model number 538 in the title under twelve different brand names, sell for Rs. 423 to Rs. 595, and are badged anywhere from 51% to 88% - because they state six different MRPs between Rs. 999 and Rs. 3,999. Two charge the identical Rs. 448 and show 72% and 55%. Rating counts are pooled too: NOVA displays 483,247 ratings on three trimmers and 203,799 on three more, and a pair of NHT 1083 clippers six rupees apart shows 38% and 45%. The brands with shops barely discount - a median badge of 38% against 69.5% for everything else - and the most-rated listing of all 213, with 488,640 ratings, carries a 22% flash.

We read Flipkart's monitor shelf on 29 September 2026 - 156 distinct listings from Rs. 2,499 to Rs. 86,599, with 24 seated here. Seven of them charge exactly Rs. 9,999, and Flipkart badges those seven 70%, 69%, 50%, 45%, 44%, 29% and 17%. The same thing repeats at Rs. 10,999, where four listings show 62%, 48%, 44% and 15%. Screen size does not narrow it either: 70 of the 154 sizeable listings are 27-inch, running Rs. 5,364 to Rs. 82,599 - fifteen-fold, at one diagonal. Per inch the shelf runs Rs. 132 to Rs. 3,059 against a Rs. 379 median. Rating counts are pooled across different screen sizes, one Samsung figure covering a 22, a second 22, a 24 and a 27 - and one title states two contradictory sizes, neither matching its own photograph.

A routine read of 246 Amazon India listings on 29 September 2026 returned 15 rows where the struck-through figure was lower than the selling price - impossible for an MRP. We went back to the live search pages and checked them one at a time. The smaller figure is a per-unit rate, not a discount and not an MRP, and the real M.R.P. is a separate, higher number on the same tile. A SanDisk 64 GB pen drive at Rs. 909 shows "Rs. 14.20 /count" - that is Rs. 909 divided by 64 gigabytes - against an M.R.P. of Rs. 1,100. The arithmetic checks out on nine of the eleven listings; the labels mostly do not. "/count" means gigabytes on one tile and single dumbbells on three others, and one 10 kg dumbbell shows "Rs. 33.98" beside "Rs. 3,398".

We read Flipkart's mattress shelf on 29 September 2026 - 242 distinct listings from Rs. 740 to Rs. 45,790 - and priced every one by the sleeping area it publishes. The rate runs Rs. 39 to Rs. 1,526 a square foot, a thirty-nine-fold spread, against a median of Rs. 283. The floor is cotton: 19 cotton and gadda listings at a median Rs. 50 a square foot, against Rs. 287 for the 221 foam, latex and spring ones - a different product, not a better price. The badge runs backwards against the rate, 70% on cotton and 41% on foam. Two listings state dimensions no mattress could have - one Double is filed as 6 inch by 4 inch - and two sellers badge their whole ranges at a single figure, 22 listings all at 56% and 15 showing only 25% and 26%.

We read Myntra's skincare aisle on 29 September 2026 - 120 distinct listings - and priced the 61 that state a volume by the millilitre. Six brands sell what their own titles call the same product in two bottle sizes, each pair sharing one rating count because Myntra pools the reviews - and in five of the six the small bottle costs 22% to 72% more per millilitre. The 15 listings of 15 ml or less run at a median Rs. 2,360 per 100 ml against Rs. 296 for the 20 listings of 100 ml or more, yet their tickets look alike: Rs. 219 to Rs. 279 against Rs. 214 to Rs. 323. The full rate runs Rs. 55 to Rs. 13,193 per 100 ml. This aisle also barely discounts - a median badge of 15.5%, with 80 of 120 at 20% or less.

We read ten Amazon India search shelves on 29 September 2026 - 296 listings - and counted how many tiles carried a discount badge at all. On dry fruits, one in forty did. On webcams and treadmills, every single listing did. Green tea managed 8 of 40, tissue 10 of 40, toilet cleaner 11 of 40; vacuum flasks 39 of 40. The second finding is stranger: where badges are rarest they are biggest - a 67% median on green tea and 70% on toilet cleaner, against 25% on the flask shelf where almost every tile carries one. 18 of the 40 tissue tiles printed no MRP at all, and two green tea tiles showed 100% off against stated MRPs of Rs. 174,000 and Rs. 160,000, which is a data artefact rather than a sale.