How is sale price, as compared to regular MSRP, handled in pricing search results?
Verisk's goal is to provide replacement prices that are accurate, consistent, and valid throughout the life cycle of the claim. Because of this goal, we strive not to include “sale prices” in our XactContents personal property database. Verisk defines a “sale price” as a temporary decrease in the price of an item.
However, it is not uncommon for different merchants to use the term “sale price” to mean something other than the Verisk definition. Some retailers advertise that they have the lowest prices and that every item is on sale all the time. Other stores label an item as “on sale” to reflect a permanent price reduction. This is common when a merchant is closing out stock or still carrying a prior year’s model of a product. Still others will display the manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) and list their own “every-day” price as on sale because it is selling for less than MSRP.
Because of these differences in how a sale price is defined, it is possible for a user to visit one of our merchant partners’ websites and notice that Verisk has published a price that is being promoted as a sale price by the merchant. This should not cause immediate alarm. The price in XactContents is intended to be the item’s regular price from the specified merchant as of the date listed.
Please be aware that while Verisk makes every effort to exclude temporary price reductions from our price list, we are merely publishing information received from each merchant, and merchants occasionally make mistakes. For more information about this, see the XactContents Estimating: Sales Prices white paper.
