We read 85 men's shirt listings from Tata CLiQ's own search on 6 September 2026. Prices run Rs. 549 to Rs. 3,199 at a median Rs. 1,299, with 60 under Rs. 1,500 and 18 under Rs. 1,000 — on a shelf of recognisable labels (Levi's, Arrow, U.S. Polo Assn., Louis Philippe, American Eagle, WROGN). Two things are worth knowing before you sort it. First, the ratings are thin: only 49 of the 85 listings carry one, the median rating count behind those is four, and the best-evidenced shirt on the shelf has 187. Second, the badge runs backwards to price — American Eagle, the dearest brand at a median Rs. 2,112, shows the smallest discount at 20%, while Thomas Scott at a median Rs. 749 shows 76% against stated MRPs up to Rs. 4,299.

We read 147 men's formalwear listings from AJIO's own search on 5 September 2026 — 70 formal trousers and 77 blazers. They are two different shelves. Trousers run Rs. 225 to Rs. 2,467 at a median of Rs. 1,025, with 32 under Rs. 1,000. Blazers start at Rs. 1,000 and median Rs. 2,949, with 26 above Rs. 3,500. Two things are worth knowing. The badges are set per brand in round steps — 21 listings at exactly 60% off, 17 at exactly 55%, mostly ARROW, which is 39 of the 147 listings. And not one listing carries a star rating or review count, so the rupee price is nearly the only checkable number here.

We read men's shirts and jackets on both sites the same morning — 152 listings from AJIO's search API, 95 from Myntra's listing pages, on 4 September 2026. The money lands close: a median Rs. 691 on AJIO against Rs. 789 on Myntra, badged 65% and 62%. The shelves do not. AJIO has 40 listings under Rs. 500 from thirteen labels — Voroxy X AG, TIGERSNAKE, Hoodler, DMSF and others with no retail presence you would know — while Myntra has 11, mostly Roadster, HIGHLANDER and Mast & Harbour. And the evidence gap is total: 69 of Myntra's 95 listings carry a rating count at a median of 958, one with 225,249, while none of AJIO's 152 carry one at all. Our Myntra sample stopped at Rs. 1,983, so this compares the two under Rs. 1,000, not at the top of the range.

Myntra's men's jeans and trouser listings, read on 3 September 2026, run Rs. 349 to Rs. 1,461 with 61 of the 64 under Rs. 1,000 and a median of Rs. 703 at a median 69% off. Trousers and cargos are the cheaper half at a median Rs. 602; jeans sit at Rs. 842. The more useful finding is what the badge is measuring: stated MRPs here are set per brand, not per garment. All six FABRIPPLE listings state Rs. 1,999 and badge 70–73%; all three MQ Denim listings state Rs. 1,599 and badge 42–44%; 38 of the 64 listings state one of four round numbers. Five separate FABRIPPLE cargos are priced at exactly Rs. 539 at 73% off, and four Roadster trousers at exactly Rs. 638 at 77%. Ratings are grouped too — ten Roadster listings share five scores — and 17 of the 64 carry no rating at all.

AJIO's own search returned 125 menswear listings on 31 August 2026 — 41 pairs of jeans, 43 casual shirts and 41 polo T-shirts — priced from a Rs. 232 V-MART polo to a Rs. 1,650 casual shirt, median Rs. 632. The three categories are priced almost on top of each other, with median badges within a point of 66 per cent. The badge itself runs inversely to brand recognition: V-MART shows 7 per cent, MAX 11, Louis Philippe 37 and 39, Benetton 40, while NEONOMAD, COSMIC, 7 Threads and Univibe run 80 to 82. U.S. Polo Assn. is the most-listed brand at 23 listings and carries both the highest median price (Rs. 951) and the shallowest median badge (49 per cent). No listing on this shelf carries a rating.

We pulled 99 track pant, jogger and sweatpant listings from AJIO's own search data on 30 August 2026. The shelf runs Rs. 234 to Rs. 1,199 with a median of Rs. 437, and two thirds of it sells under Rs. 500. The badge runs opposite to brand recognition: Puma discounts 60 to 66 per cent and still costs Rs. 884 upwards, PERFORMAX sits at a flat 10 per cent, while the 85 to 90 per cent badges belong to labels like POSHAX and EYEBOGLER that state MRPs of Rs. 2,999 to Rs. 4,999 on garments selling for Rs. 260 to Rs. 600. Those MRPs are reference numbers rather than prices anyone paid. Naming matters too — joggers run a median Rs. 507 against Rs. 338 for track pants. And not one of the 99 listings carries a rating or a review count.

We pulled every product on uniqlo.com/in on 27 August 2026 - 357 of them - and the catalogue turns out to carry just fourteen list prices, each one ending in 90: Rs. 290, 490, 690, 990, 1,290, 1,490, 1,990, 2,490, 2,990, 3,490, 3,990, 4,990, 5,990 and 9,990. A hundred and seven products, three in every ten, are priced Rs. 1,490. Nothing on the site costs Rs. 1,349 or Rs. 2,199. Sixty-eight products are marked down, and every markdown lands on a price that already exists on the ladder, 38 of them on Rs. 990 exactly - so a Uniqlo cut moves a garment down a rung rather than producing a new number. Uniqlo publishes no MRP here at all, so no card on this page shows one. Twenty-three products are seated, Rs. 290 to Rs. 9,990, with rating pills only where a real count exists - and only 85 of the 357 have one.

We read 100 listings across Myntra's men's shorts, women's shorts and women's skirts shelves on 27 August 2026 - every one returned a price, an MRP and an image - and seated 21 of them, Rs. 305 to Rs. 983. The selling prices of all three aisles sit in the same band, but the discount badges do not: the median is 47 per cent on men's shorts, 55 on women's shorts and 66 on women's skirts. The gap is entirely in the stated MRP. A U.S. Polo Assn. lounge short sells at Rs. 713 off a stated Rs. 849, a 16 per cent badge; a satin maxi skirt sells at Rs. 824 off a stated Rs. 3,999, a 79 per cent badge. Rs. 111 apart in what you pay, Rs. 3,150 apart in claimed worth. We also found Myntra pooling rating counts across style families - four U.S. Polo listings all show 9,383 ratings - and one Roadster short listed three separate times.

Capsule Wardrobe 101, built from one store. We read Bewakoof's plain-tee, casual-shirt, jeans, jogger and jacket category pages on August 27, 2026, and picked 18 pieces — at least three per category — that all live inside one five-colour neutral band: black, white, beige, brown, blue denim and a single muted green. The rule was pairing mileage: every piece had to work with at least five others, so the four tees, four shirts, four jeans, three joggers and three jackets multiply into dozens of outfits instead of eighteen. The evidence came from Bewakoof's own review counts — the white tee carries 1,431 ratings at 4.7, the black tee 1,403 at 4.8, the chocolate track pant 966 at 4.6 — and the prices run Rs. 449 to Rs. 2,299. The full 18-piece edit costs Rs. 21,882 at the prices we read; the nine-piece starter capsule marked inside the picks lands at Rs. 8,991. Seasons are covered, not assumed: linen for summer, a hooded shell for monsoon, corduroy and a reversible puffer for winter.

We read Myntra's men's shirt shelf on 23 August 2026 from the store's own listing data, across men-casual-shirts pages one to four and men-shirts pages one to three, and seated 24 listings priced Rs. 405 to Rs. 999 after removing duplicates on product id and photograph. Seven of the 24 have no published rating whatsoever - and they hold three of the four largest discount badges on the page, at 80, 80 and 79 per cent. Only two listings in the entire read state an MRP below Rs. 1,000; five state exactly Rs. 1,999 and sell at Rs. 405, Rs. 429, Rs. 498, Rs. 553 and Rs. 711. The sharpest illustration is two Roadster shirts priced identically at Rs. 553, one badged 72 per cent and the other 45, because they are measured against different claimed MRPs. Myntra also pools rating counts across a label's catalogue rather than per garment - HIGHLANDER returns 2,23,531 - so we seated one listing per pool and say so on every card.

We read 97 listings from AJIO's own search API on 22 August 2026 across men socks, men innerwear and men vest, and seated 24 of them - one per brand, priced Rs. 49 to Rs. 850. Three things stand out. First, AJIO published no rating and no rating count for any of the 97 listings, so there is no crowd to consult anywhere on this shelf. Second, the discount badge sorts brands rather than products: every listing above 60 per cent off belongs to a label with no presence outside this catalogue - USOXO at 93, XQsee at 88, HEBTROCO and Asthamoxi at 83 - while every national name sits under 50, from LUX COZI at 5 per cent through adidas and Jack & Jones at 20 to Dollar at 47. Third, half the shelf is multipacks, so the listed price is not comparable at all. Per piece, socks run Rs. 23 to Rs. 133 a pair and briefs Rs. 74 to Rs. 349 - and the badge inverts the answer: the cheapest brief per piece shows 45 per cent off, the dearest shows 68.

We read AJIO's own search responses for men's shirts on 19 August 2026 - 74 listings carrying a price and a stated MRP, 66 after removing repeated names - and seated 24 of them, from Rs. 240 to Rs. 1,850. The shelf sorts itself neatly, just not the way the badges suggest. An EYEBOGLER shirt selling at Rs. 275 states an MRP of Rs. 2,499, and a Hoodler at Rs. 325 states the same figure; on the same page, Louis Philippe sells at Rs. 1,356 and SELECTED at Rs. 1,850, so the list price claimed by the cheapest shirts here is higher than what the most established brands actually charge. Every recognisable label in the read carries a badge between 41 and 56 per cent, and AJIO's own DNMX claims the two smallest MRPs on the page at Rs. 899 and Rs. 1,199. AJIO publishes no rating or rating count on any of these listings, so this page ranks on price and on what each listing states about fabric, fit and collar.

We read AJIO's own listings across five queries on 18 August 2026 - men's jeans, men's trousers, women's jeans, men's chinos and women's trousers - and got 191 results carrying a price and a higher MRP. A hundred and fifty-one are under Rs. 999 and twenty are seated here, from Rs. 141 to Rs. 960. The badge runs backwards along that ladder. The cheapest half is marketplace labels - Fabflee, TROMKO, KOTTY, Silverfly, KASHIANXSTYLE, Buda Jeans Co, which alone accounts for 32 of the 191 listings - selling at Rs. 141 to Rs. 600 with badges of 74 to 86 per cent off stated MRPs reaching Rs. 3,999. The dearest half is mall and D2C brands - MAX, John Players, Lee Cooper, Park Avenue, Indian Terrain, SNITCH, ARROW - at Rs. 649 to Rs. 960 with badges of 19 to 63 per cent off MRPs a shop would plausibly charge. One label holds its badge at exactly 77 per cent across two MRPs Rs. 700 apart. And AJIO published a rating on none of the 191.

We read Beardo's own product feed on 18 August 2026 - 250 products and 251 priced variants, of which 234 carry a compare-at price above what they sell for. With 93 per cent of the catalogue permanently marked down, the percentage is a pricing policy rather than a sale, so we compared the only thing that varies honestly: rupees per millilitre. The spread is more than three and a half times. A 50 ml x 4 combo at Rs. 999 gives you 200 ml at Rs. 5.00 a millilitre, the cheapest fragrance on the site. A single 100 ml bottle at Rs. 699 is Rs. 6.99; a 50 ml at Rs. 375 is Rs. 7.50; the four-piece 20 ml giftset at Rs. 599 is Rs. 7.49, dearer per unit than a full bottle; and a 30 ml Alpha Elixir at Rs. 549 is Rs. 18.30. The trap is the word combo: the After Dark duo at Rs. 3,499 and the Hollywood Icon three-pack at Rs. 3,900 are also combos, carry no stated discount at all, and cost Rs. 17.50 and Rs. 13.00 a millilitre.

We read 208 AJIO men's shorts, track pant and jogger listings on August 12, 2026 from the retailer's own search API across three queries, and seated 20. The finding is a price ordering that runs opposite to the fabric used: a full-length track pant has a median selling price of Rs. 349, a pair of shorts Rs. 449 and a jogger Rs. 587. What sets that ordering is the stated-MRP tier each format is filed under - a median Rs. 1,299 for track pants, Rs. 999 for shorts and Rs. 1,699 for joggers - and not the garment. Thirty-two of the 208 listings share a stated MRP of exactly Rs. 999 and sell between Rs. 240 and Rs. 899, a 3.7x range under one sticker, with badges from 10 per cent to 76 per cent. The whole wall resolves to 52 stated MRPs against 126 distinct selling prices. Not one of the 208 rows carries a customer rating, so no pick here gets a rating pill. Twenty picks, Rs. 160 to Rs. 680.