Data & Statistics

Same Product, Different Price

Data as of 1 September 20266,669 productsIndependent · no paid placements

We match products across retailers by EAN (barcode) — not by name or description, but by the same code printed on the same physical item. That lets us answer a very literal version of “does comparing pay?”: when the exact same product is sold by more than one UK furniture retailer, how much does the price actually differ?

We looked at every in-stock product with a valid, matchable barcode across the retailers we track, grouped them by EAN, and kept every group where two or more distinct retailers currently list the same item.

6,669

identical products, matched by barcode, are currently sold by two or more of the retailers we track.

18.6%

is the median gap between the cheapest and most expensive retailer for the same product — the mean (28.4%) is pulled higher by a smaller number of much larger gaps.

Real examples

Every row below is the same physical product — same barcode — currently listed at two different retailers. These are the largest gaps we found, hand-checked against both listings' own descriptions to rule out a barcode shared across different sizes or materials — they are not typical: the median gap across all 6,669 matched products is just 18.6% (above). Prices shown are the effective (sale-aware) price at the time of writing and will move with live stock and pricing, so click through to check the current price before buying.

Julian Bowen Scala Console Table in Gold144% cheaper at Debenhams

Debenhams: £105.99Dunelm: £259

Julian Bowen Delaunay Upholstered Dining Chair (Set of 2) in Mustard122% cheaper at Debenhams

Debenhams: £105.99Dunelm: £235

Julian Bowen Modena Curved Spindle Back Dining Chair (Set of 2) in White120% cheaper at Debenhams

Debenhams: £92.99Dunelm: £205

Birlea Berlin Grey Fabric Ottoman Storage Bed in Mid Grey81% cheaper at Debenhams

Debenhams: £219.99Dunelm: £399

Silentnight Healthy Growth Eco Bunk Single Mattress59% cheaper at Dunelm

Dunelm: £119.20Silentnight: £189

Why the same product costs different amounts

Retailers set their own prices independently — stock-clearance timing, delivery/service bundling, brand positioning and how aggressively a retailer discounts all move the shelf price of the exact same item. None of that is visible from a single retailer's page; it only shows up once you put listings side by side.

Methodology

We matched products by EAN (barcode) across every active retailer we track, using the same matching and sale-aware effective-price logic that powers the “compare prices” panel on individual product pages. Placeholder/degenerate barcodes (e.g. all-zero codes some feeds use as a null value) are excluded. From 187,910 in-stock products with a matchable barcode across 140,100 distinct EANs, 7,853 EANs had two or more retailers currently listing the same item; we then excluded 1,184 clusters with a gap above 350%, since a gap that large is far more likely to be a barcode shared across a mismatched variant (a different size, colour or bundle re-using the manufacturer's EAN) than a genuine like-for-like price difference — leaving 6,669 clusters in this analysis. Coverage depends on which retailers publish EANs in their product feeds, so this is a sample of the overlap we can verify, not the full catalogue. The 350% cutoff only screens the most extreme mismatches — for the five examples featured above, we additionally checked both listings' own descriptions by hand to rule out a barcode shared across a different size or material, which a percentage cutoff alone can miss.

See it for yourself

Every product page shows other retailers selling the same item, where we have a match — and lets you compare live prices across every UK retailer we track.

Browse all retailers Delivery costs compared How long do sales really last?Buying advice