We read Tata CLiQ's own bath towel listings on 1 October 2026 - 22 of them, including one brand's terry range in six box sizes. Price them per piece and the twelve-piece box is the cheapest on the shelf at Rs. 88.25 a piece - and its own title says it contains four hand towels and eight face towels, no bath towel at all. The two-piece box at Rs. 449 holds the same two bath towels as the Rs. 1,399 four-piece. Stated GSM does not track price either: a 220 GSM towel at Rs. 760 sits beside a 500 GSM one at Rs. 674, and only 5 of the 22 listings print a GSM figure at all. Ten carry reviews; the largest count is eight.

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 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 Flipkart's chair shelf on 28 September 2026 - 153 distinct listings from Rs. 2,099 to Rs. 69,990, with 25 seated here. The 68 gaming chairs cost a median Rs. 12,716 against Rs. 4,761 for the 85 office and study chairs - 2.67 times - while carrying a smaller median badge, 49.5% against 64%. And 31 of the 68 gaming chairs publish no rating at all, against four of the 85 office chairs. One chair sells at Rs. 4,749 on three listings that share 1,859 ratings and state three different MRPs, advertised as 81%, 76% and 75% off. Five listings sell at exactly Rs. 13,022 under four seller names, badged 31% to 41%. Two chairs are discounted by one rupee.

We read both bedsheet shelves on the same morning, 28 September 2026 - 68 listings on Flipkart and 49 on Myntra. Flipkart's median price is Rs. 335 and not one of its 68 listings costs more than Rs. 585. Myntra's median is Rs. 681, with 27 of its 49 above that ceiling and five over Rs. 1,000. Both shelves inflate the strike-through: Flipkart's median stated MRP is 5.20 times its price, Myntra's 4.01, and no bedsheet on either site sold at its stated MRP. Only one brand appears on both shelves, so no like-for-like is possible - and Flipkart's apparent five-times feedback advantage shrinks once you notice one rating count sitting on nine separate listings.

We read 203 listings across six of Myntra's non-apparel shelves on 28 September 2026. Home furnishing shows a median discount badge of 62%; men's grooming shows 11.5%. But three of those six medians are not describing a category at all. ARMORO holds 25 of the 32 storage listings - three product names across 25 tiles, seventeen of them at exactly 14% off. The other seven listings have a median badge of 79%. SWASUM holds eleven identical kitchen tiles, all at Rs. 399 and exactly 33% off. And the two shelves a single seller has filled are the two where almost nobody has left a rating: 3 of 32 each, against 28 of 32 on men's innerwear.

We read 78 curtain and cookware listings on tatacliq.com on 28 September 2026, priced Rs. 326 to Rs. 17,425. The 32 listings from Prestige, Hawkins, Bergner and Borosil carry a median discount badge of 20%. The other 46, overwhelmingly curtains, carry 48% - and the cookware is the dearer half. Hawkins is the tightest brand in the read: its ten badges are 2, 10, 12, 12 and 13 per cent six times, and one 5 litre cooker is discounted by Rs. 51. The clincher is DDecor, a furnishing house whose six curtain listings show only 10% and 25%. And the whole shelf is nearly unrated: 40 of 78 listings publish a rating, at a median count of two.

Flipkart prints the shelf count on every wall shelf listing, in the grey subtitle under the title. We read 249 distinct listings on 26 September 2026 and divided. The median comes to Rs. 99 a shelf. The cheapest is Rs. 14.38 — eight shelves for Rs. 115, with 1,659 ratings. The dearest is Rs. 1,688, which buys one shelf and carries three ratings. Single-unit listings cost a median Rs. 151 a shelf against Rs. 63.75 for a four-piece set. Fifty-four listings from 45 different brands declare the same Rs. 999 MRP while selling from Rs. 89 to Rs. 695, and one seller publishes the same 807 ratings on three listings at three prices.

We read Myntra's own listing data for four home decor paths on 26 September 2026 and kept the 96 listings that are genuinely decor. Nine are badged at 80% off or more and seven at 10% or less — and both groups contain ceramic vases and wooden photo frames. Art Street lists Rs. 399 vases against a stated MRP of Rs. 3,000 and a Rs. 499 frame set against Rs. 4,000, all four unrated, while Pure Home and Living sells vases at Rs. 999 and Rs. 1,149 at no discount and Home Centre's frames sit at a flat 10% off. Photo frames are the least-reviewed part of the shelf: 20 of 32 publish no rating, against 10 of 34 vases.

We read AJIO's own search API for candles, vases, cushion covers and home decor on 26 September 2026: 166 distinct listings with prices, stated MRPs and badges. Not one of the 166 publishes a rating — no star average, no count, no reviews — while Myntra's decor shelf, read the same morning, rated 62 of 96. With no feedback signal, the badge is the only number that looks like information, and it is set by brand: Home Centre a median 10% off across 15 listings, Cortina 71% across ten. The useful number is the piece count — cushion covers run Rs. 105 to Rs. 2,159 a piece, and candles Rs. 95 to Rs. 649.

We read Amazon's puja shelf on 26 September 2026 - 126 listings across five queries, each returning a selling price and a stated MRP, with 23 seated here. The finding is that the aisle you are standing in decides the discount badge: diya sets show a median 76% off, brass idols and thali sets 50%, samagri kits 45% and incense just 18%. The aisle with the smallest badges carries the most evidence - all 26 incense listings publish a rating, the largest sample being 13,944, while ten of the 22 samagri kits publish none at all. One label prints a single Rs. 1,999 MRP across four different Rs. 999 thali sets, and two listings we declined to seat declare exactly one hundred times what they charge.

We read Myntra's watch listings on 25 September 2026 — 80 in all, 64 of them ordinary wristwatches — and sorted them by whether the brand makes watches for a living. The 27 from Titan, Zoop, Casio, Sonata, Fastrack and Timex have a median discount of 0%, with 18 at exactly zero and not one above 50%. The other 37 have a median of 72%, with 25 at 70% or more. Both groups sell in the same money: Anouk's Rs. 1,831 watch wears a 72% badge off a stated Rs. 6,497, while Titan's Rs. 1,995 wears none. And this is not just a new-seller effect: Casio's 0%-off Vintage carries 25,967 ratings, WROGN's 76%-off analogue carries 16,341.