Are affiliate feed discounts real?

Roughly half. Of 5,682 rows carrying both a list and a sale price on 31 August 2026, 2,931 showed a markdown, but 112 had a placeholder list price such as $999 or $9,999 and several advertisers mark down their whole catalogue permanently. 2,816 rows carried a genuine markdown at a median of 36% off.

Why does an affiliate feed show every product on sale?

Because the list-price field holds a suggested or internal reference price rather than one the item was sold at, so the markdown is structural and never expires.

Should creators publish percentage-off figures from feeds?

No. Publish the price a buyer would actually pay and the date it was read; in about half of these rows there is nothing honest to compute a percentage against.

LinkToLooks · Guides

Are the sale prices in affiliate product feeds real discounts?

About half of them are not. Of 5,682 rows in this pull that carry both a list price and a sale price, 2,931 show a markdown — but 112 of those have a list price that is a placeholder ($999, $9,999, $777), and 5 advertisers mark down 100% of their catalogue, every day, permanently.

After stripping the placeholders, 2,816 rows carry a genuine markdown at a median of 36% off. That is the number a creator should use, and it is not the number the feed hands you.

Product listing carrying a permanent feed markdown, US affiliate feed, August 2026 — A listing from Temu, one of 5 advertisers here whose ENTIRE catalogue is marked down in the feed. Every row it ships carries a sale price below its list price, so the discount is a property of the feed rather than an event.

How often each advertiser marks down

Advertiser	Rows with both prices	Genuinely marked down	Share	Median discount
Poshmark	3800	1270	33%	50%
UnbeatableSale.com	609	609	100%	36%
Replacements Ltd.	412	412	100%	17%
Macy's	295	188	64%	20%
Temu	68	68	100%	26%
REVOLVE	64	0	0%	—
Michaels Stores	48	48	100%	25%
Global Equipment Company	47	0	0%	—
Office Depot and OfficeMax	44	0	0%	—
TikTok Shop US - Marketplaces	43	41	95%	32%
Hot Topic	41	41	100%	20%
Hobby Lobby	32	32	100%	50%

Read the Share column, not the discount. An advertiser at 100% is not running a sale; its list price is a reference number and its sale price is its price. An advertiser at 0% is not expensive; it simply does not populate the list-price field. Neither behaviour is dishonest, and both break a "% off" badge built naively on the two fields.

The placeholder problem, in numbers

Placeholder list price	Rows carrying it
$999	45
$9,999	32
$777	11
$111	6
$888	4
$555	4
$444	3
$1,234	3

These are peer-to-peer rows where the seller left the original-price field at a default. Compute a discount from them and you publish "99% off" against a $9,999 sweater. 112 rows in this pull would have done exactly that, plus 3 rows where the sale price itself is $0.00. All are excluded from every figure on this page.

Conventional retailer listing carrying an occasional markdown, US affiliate feed, August 2026 — A listing from Daily Drape, where markdowns are occasional rather than universal: 73% of its rows here carry one. That is what a usable discount signal looks like.

What a discount in a product feed actually means

At a conventional retailer: a real markdown against a price the item was sold at. Usable.
At a permanent-sale retailer: the list price is a manufacturer's suggested price or an internal reference. The discount is structural and never expires, so calling it a deal is a lie with a long half-life.
At a replacement or estate dealer: the list price is what a comparable piece sold for, not what this piece was ever priced at.
On a peer-to-peer marketplace: the list price is whatever the seller typed. It is not verified by anyone.

The rule we follow

Publish the price, not the discount. Every price on a LinkToLooks page is the sale price — what you would actually pay — with the date it was read. We do not publish a percentage off, because in half the rows above there is nothing honest to compute it against.

Honest limits: one pull, one day, 46 topic queries in nostalgia, stationery and Q4 gifting. 5,066 of the 10,748 rows in the pull carry no list price at all and are absent from every figure here — they are neither discounted nor full-price, they are unstated.

Last verified 31 August 2026 against 5,682 deduplicated rows carrying both a list and a sale price, from a single CJ product-feed pull made during this run. Peer-to-peer marketplace asks of $500 or more are excluded as seller placeholders, as are repdigit asks such as $999 and $9,999 wherever they appear; retailer prices are used as published.

LinkToLooks has earned $0 in affiliate commission to date. No network has approved us for a programme, so we cannot read any programme's commission terms and this page does not publish a rate we have not seen. Everything below is measured from the product feed itself.

Frequently asked

Are the discounts in affiliate product feeds real?

About half. Of 5,682 rows carrying both prices, 2,931 showed a markdown, but 112 had a placeholder list price and 5 advertisers mark down their entire catalogue permanently. 2,816 rows carry a genuine markdown, median 36% off.

Why do some feeds show every item on sale?

Because their list-price field holds a manufacturer's suggested price or an internal reference rather than a price the item was sold at. The markdown is structural and never expires.

Should I publish percentage discounts from a product feed?

No. Publish the price you would actually pay, with the date it was read. In half these rows there is nothing honest to compute a percentage against.

Sources

CJ Affiliate product feeds, US advertisers, queried 31 August 2026 — every count and price on this page is computed from that pull