We read both mixer grinder shelves on the same morning, 28 September 2026 - 59 listings on Flipkart and 32 on Myntra. Flipkart's median price is Rs. 1,348; Myntra's is Rs. 3,092, 2.29 times as much - and the cheaper shelf carries the bigger discount badge, 62% against 45%. Fifty-one of Flipkart's 59 sell under Rs. 2,000, against nine of Myntra's 32. Six brands sell on both sides: an Atomberg is Rs. 6,999 on each, behind stated MRPs of Rs. 10,999 and Rs. 11,999, and a Nutripro blender is Rs. 1,599 against Rs. 1,899 behind an identical Rs. 5,000 MRP. Flipkart publishes eight times more feedback - though its biggest counts are pooled across five listings.

We read 128 torch, headlamp, emergency-light and solar-light listings on amazon.in on 28 September 2026, priced Rs. 149 to Rs. 2,598. Twelve state a lumen figure, and they do not belong to the same world: Philips' Rover states 800 lumens at Rs. 798 and Eveready's lantern states 220 at Rs. 359, while a Rs. 999 torch states 1,000,000. Every figure from a named lighting house works out at 0.6 to 1.0 lumens per rupee; every marketplace figure at 4.9 to 1,001. The house brands also show a 40.5% median discount badge against 60.5% - at a lower price - and carry a median 2,688 ratings against 107. Nothing here was measured; these are the listings' own printed claims.

We read Vijay Sales' water purifier shelf on 27 September 2026 - 27 listings, every one with a price and a stated MRP, with 25 seated here. The finding is that the stage count printed on the box is not a price: six machines state nine purification stages and sell at Rs. 9,499, Rs. 15,199, Rs. 15,999, Rs. 15,999, Rs. 21,800 and Rs. 27,000. Cost per stated stage runs Rs. 1,055 to Rs. 3,400, and the 12-stage machine costs the same per stage as the 6-stage one. One model name lets you price RO exactly: the UV version is Rs. 8,999 and the RO version Rs. 14,990, both with a 6-litre tank - a Rs. 5,991 premium. Not one of the 27 publishes a star rating, so the spec strip is the whole of the evidence.

We read both water purifier shelves on the same morning, 27 September 2026 - 27 listings at Vijay Sales and 21 on Flipkart. Where they overlap, they are startlingly alike: the Urban Company Native M1 sells for Rs. 15,999 on both, against the same stated Rs. 20,999 MRP, wearing the same 24% badge. The one difference is that Flipkart publishes 4.5 stars from 15,077 ratings and Vijay Sales publishes no rating at all - on that listing or any of its other 26. The headline discount gap (72% against 29%) is a catalogue difference: 12 of Flipkart's 21 listings sell under Rs. 5,000 and Vijay Sales stocks nothing there. Compare Rs. 7,000-plus machines only and the medians are 40% and 28%. And one machine at Rs. 19,499 on both sites wears two different badges, because the two shops struck through two different MRPs.

We read Amazon India's rice cooker, roti maker and electric lunch box shelves on 27 September 2026 - 79 distinct listings, 24 seated here. Capacity is the cheapest thing on the cooker shelf: 1.8-litre models work out at Rs. 1,166 to Rs. 2,111 a litre while 1-litre models cost Rs. 1,619 to Rs. 2,197 a litre. One brand sells a 1-litre single pot at Rs. 1,619 and a 1.8-litre at Rs. 2,099 - 80% more rice for 30% more money. Two listings state an MRP exactly 100 times the selling price (Rs. 2,898 against Rs. 2,89,800), and five state an MRP below it; all seven are excluded from our medians. Two separate Panasonic cookers display the same 10,473 ratings, and the 'roti maker' search returns Rs. 159 manual jali roasters.

We read Amazon India's smart lock shelf on 27 September 2026 - 49 distinct listings from Rs. 998 to Rs. 29,285, with 24 seated here. Eight of the 49 state an MRP exactly 100 times the selling price: Rs. 3,999 against a stated Rs. 3,99,900, Rs. 1,049 against Rs. 1,04,900, and six more from six different sellers. Amazon renders each as 99% off. Set those aside and the other 40 listings behave normally - a median badge of 46% and a median stated MRP of 1.85x. One seller puts the same Rs. 74,999 MRP on two different locks priced Rs. 4,628 and Rs. 9,499, both showing the same 27 ratings; another lists one model twice, Rs. 593 apart. And the strike-throughs shrink as the prices rise.

We read Flipkart's room heater shelf on 23 September 2026 - 196 listings with a price and a stated MRP, 23 seated here. Three of them sell at exactly Rs. 999: a USHA quartz heater showing 50% off, an ORPAT fan heater showing 23% and a HAVELLS quartz heater showing 52%. Same money at checkout, three different sized badges, because the stated MRPs are Rs. 1,990, Rs. 1,295 and Rs. 2,099. Across the shelf the MRP multiple splits by brand recognition: the unknown names state 2.5 to 4.25 times their selling price, ORPAT and V-Guard state 1.10 and 1.09. Rating counts run from none at all on the Rs. 613 listing to 61,687 on a Rs. 899 Sansui.

We read Reliance Digital's water heater listings on 23 September 2026 - 29 with a price and a stated MRP, 16 seated here. Divide each price by the capacity the listing states and the rate runs from Rs. 326 a litre on a 25-litre Orient at Rs. 8,159 to Rs. 1,666 a litre on a 6-litre A.O. Smith at Rs. 9,999 - the bigger tank costs Rs. 1,840 less than the smaller one. Six three-litre instant heaters with the same stated wattage span Rs. 2,599 to Rs. 4,199, and three immersion rods are priced so that the 1,500 W model costs Rs. 20 more than one 1,000 W rod and Rs. 50 less than another. Not one listing publishes a rating.

We read Croma's ceiling fan shelf on 22 September 2026. Every one of the 21 listings is a 1200 mm three-blade fan, and they cost between Rs. 1,499 and Rs. 8,999 - six times, for the same size. Crompton's Energion NITEO appears four times against one stated MRP of Rs. 5,749, at Rs. 3,349, Rs. 3,399, Rs. 3,650 and Rs. 3,999 - the colour sets the price, by Rs. 650. Three identical Hill Briz listings at Rs. 1,699 carry three separate rating counts, 7, 14 and 21, because Croma does not pool feedback across finishes. The median rating count on this shelf is five, and only two of twenty listings reach twenty ratings.

We read 25 voltage stabilizer listings on croma.com on 15 September 2026 and tested the number everyone shops by. The amps rating does not predict the price — across the 22 listings that state both, the correlation is -0.08, which is no relationship at all. The cheapest 15 Amps unit here is Rs. 1,414; the dearest 6 Amps unit is Rs. 5,389. What does explain the shelf is the working voltage window printed in the brackets everybody skips: window width against price correlates at +0.71. Seven 12 Amps units for the same 1.5-ton air conditioner sell between Rs. 1,999 and Rs. 4,574. And the two listings Croma discounts by exactly one rupee are both wide-window boxes.

We read 23 extension board and surge protector listings on croma.com on 15 September 2026, and the first problem is the titles. The word 'Amps' means two different things on this one shelf: a load rating on the boards (6 Amps, 10 Amps) and a surge capacity on the seven Honeywell units (7,500 up to 36,000 Amps). Sorting the aisle by that number compares quantities that are not comparable. Divide by socket count instead and a socket costs Rs. 99.67 to Rs. 742.25, a 7.4x spread. Belkin's four sizes get cheaper per socket at every step; Croma's own range runs backwards. And every one of the seven Honeywells — the dearest chapter here — has no rating count at all.

We read eighty-three mixer grinder, gas stove, induction cooktop and water purifier listings on croma.com on 13 September 2026 and seated twenty-four, pricing each one against the spec its category is sold on. Two shelves, two different worlds. Induction is priced by the watt: four single cooktops from 1,350W to 2,200W sit inside a Rs. 126.30 to Rs. 190.43 per-100W band. Mixer grinders are not: the same arithmetic spans Rs. 279.80 to Rs. 1,373.20, and an 1,100W Bosch at Rs. 8,599 undercuts a 750W Preethi at Rs. 10,299. Gas stoves climb at every rung — Rs. 999.50 a burner on a two, Rs. 1,237.25 on a four. And the two cheapest water purifiers carry the two worst ratings on the page.

We read fifty-seven vacuum cleaner, steam iron and air purifier listings on croma.com on 11 September 2026, priced from Rs. 749 to Rs. 86,990. The badge on this shelf identifies the brand, not the saving: Philips's eleven listings run a median 13%, Dyson 8%, LG 13% and Xiaomi 13%, while DREAME's eight run a median 42% and up to 86%. Five DREAME robot-vacuum MRPs end in 998 and each is exactly twice a round Rs. ...,999 figure. Two Croma steam irons here share a specification and an MRP and sell Rs. 300 apart — and the cheaper one rates 4.1 stars against the dearer one's 2.6. Only 33 of 57 listings carry any star rating.

We read sixty-five vacuum, iron and air-treatment listings on vijaysales.com on 11 September 2026; twenty-six were vacuum cleaners, priced Rs. 2,990 to Rs. 72,999. The same Dyson V12s Detect Slim Submarine is listed twice, both against a stated MRP of Rs. 62,900, at Rs. 55,900 and Rs. 59,900 — four thousand rupees apart on one site on one afternoon. Two other products in the read are duplicated too. The deepest badge across all sixty-five listings is 53%, and within vacuums it is 40%, where Croma's vacuum shelf that same afternoon reached 86%. Vijay Sales publishes no star ratings at all.

We read all three electronics chains' air-purifier shelves on 11 September 2026 — 15 listings at Croma, 12 at Reliance Digital, 14 at Vijay Sales — and found five models on more than one of them. No chain wins them all: Reliance Digital is Rs. 400 cheaper on the Eureka Forbes 270, Vijay Sales Rs. 1,509 cheaper on the 355, and Croma Rs. 2,259 cheaper on the Philips AC4221/60 — every comparison against an identical stated MRP. The Dyson HushJet is Rs. 29,900 at one chain and Rs. 29,899 at the other, badged 14% off and 0% off. Two of the three publish no customer ratings at all.