Figures from SimSift's own stored Back Market UK feed pulls as of 9 Nov 2026, 12:13 GMT. We refresh this page when new pulls are logged.
Real deal or fake? How often refurbished tech actually sells at its "RRP"
Big "save 60%" badges usually compare today's price with an RRP. We wanted to know how often that RRP is a price anyone was actually charged. So we checked every pull of Back Market UK's official affiliate feed that SimSift has stored since 28 Oct 2026, 12:50 GMT, listing by listing.
What we found
- The RRP is almost never the price. 3,318 of 3,323 listings (99.8%) never showed a price at or above the RRP in our window. Counting only the 176 pulls recorded live from 1 Nov 2026, 09:58 GMT, it was 3,267 of 3,267.
- So a big "saving" is the normal price. Half the listings were at least 56.3% below their RRP at the last check, and 1,958 (58.9%) were 50% or more below it, with no sale on.
- Real prices do move. 1,499 listings (45.1%) changed price at least once: 714 ended lower than they started and 625 ended higher. The median swing between a listing's lowest and highest price was 13.2%.
- Phones look the same. For 49 refurbished phone models with at least 3 days of our daily record, the highest daily low we've recorded was below the RRP of today's cheapest listing on every one. The median gap to RRP was 63.6%.
What this means: a "was" or RRP figure tells you what the product cost new, not what it cost last week. Black Friday prices should be judged against the price history, not the RRP. That's the check we'll run on 27 November.
By category
| Category | Listings | Never at RRP | Median gap to RRP | Changed price | Above own low at last check |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Laptops | 1,949 | 1,946 (99.8%) | 56.4% | 761 (39%) | 445 |
| Tablets | 509 | 509 (100%) | 51.6% | 285 (56%) | 189 |
| MacBooks | 496 | 494 (99.6%) | 61.3% | 272 (54.8%) | 171 |
| Smartwatches | 324 | 324 (100%) | 55.5% | 149 (46%) | 105 |
| Consoles | 45 | 45 (100%) | 40.7% | 32 (71.1%) | 29 |
Examples
Real listings from the feed. "Range" is the lowest and highest price we stored for that exact listing in the window.
Biggest gaps to RRP
| Listing | RRP in feed | Range | Last check | Below RRP |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MacBook Pro Retina 15-inch (2018) - Core i9 - 32GB SSD 512 QWERTY - English | £3849 | £358–£389 | £362 | 90.6% |
| MacBook Pro Retina 13-inch (2018) - Core i7 - 8GB SSD 256 QWERTY - English | £3999 | £380–£387 | £383 | 90.4% |
| MacBook Pro Retina 15-inch (2018) - Core i9 - 16GB SSD 256 QWERTY - English | £4239 | £411–£429 | £415 | 90.2% |
| MacBook Pro Retina 15-inch (2018) - Core i9 - 32GB SSD 2000 QWERTY - English | £5480 | £549–£549 | £549 | 90% |
| MacBook Pro Retina 16-inch (2019) - Core i9 - 32GB SSD 1000 QWERTY - English | £3999 | £375–£407 | £400 | 90% |
Went up, still "46%+ off"
| Listing | RRP in feed | Range | Last check | Below RRP |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MacBook Pro Retina 16-inch (2019) - Core i7 - 32GB SSD 512 QWERTY - English | £2999 | £399–£970 | £970 | 67.7% |
| HP EliteBook 850 G8 15-inch (2020) - Core i5 - Gen 11 (G) - 16GB - SSD 512 GB QWERTY - English | £2074 | £399–£849 | £849 | 59.1% |
| Dell Latitude 9430 14-inch (2022) - Core i7 - Gen 12 (U) - 16GB - SSD 512 GB QWERTY - English | £1999 | £399–£814 | £814 | 59.3% |
| HP EliteBook 845 G7 14-inch (2020) - Ryzen 5 - 4000 Series (U) - 16GB - SSD 512 GB QWERTY - English | £1107.60 | £289–£570 | £570 | 48.5% |
| Microsoft Surface Pro 7+ 12-inch (2020) - Core i5 - Gen 11 (G) - 8GB - SSD 256 GB QWERTY - English | £1100 | £299–£588 | £588 | 46.5% |
How we did it
- Data: every pull of Back Market UK's product feed (Awin programme 25205) that SimSift stored for its own price pages, 28 Oct 2026, 12:50 GMT to 9 Nov 2026, 12:13 GMT: 184 pulls. We keep the cheapest in-stock UK listing per model and variant.
- Unit: one listing (same listing ID, same title, spec, colour and storage at every pull). Listings that changed spec mid-window were left out. A listing needed at least 10 pulls to count.
- RRP: the
rrpfield in the same feed, read from our full stored snapshots (from 1 Nov). It changed once across our snapshots in the window; we use the latest RRP for each listing. - "Never at RRP": the highest price we stored for the listing was below its RRP.
- Phones: our daily lowest price per phone model page, compared with the RRP of today's cheapest listing for that model.
Limits
- One retailer feed (Back Market UK) and refurbished stock only. It says nothing about new products or other shops.
- A short window so far (28 Oct 2026 to 9 Nov 2026). The first 8 pulls (before 1 Nov 2026, 09:58 GMT) were rebuilt on 1 Nov from earlier stored copies of the feed; the results without them are given above.
- 5 listings showed a price equal to RRP, all in those rebuilt early pulls. We think these were placeholder prices, so they're counted as "at RRP" here to be safe.
- The feed price can differ from the price on the site at checkout. RRP is Back Market's figure for the product; we don't know how each RRP was set.
Download the data (CSV, 3,323 listings)
Check a price yourself
Every product we track has its own price history page, with the lowest price we've recorded each day. Want to know when something drops? Set a price-drop alert.
Context: Which? tracked 175 products for a year and found 83% were the same price or cheaper outside the Black Friday period (Which?). That's their research, not ours.
Data as of 9 Nov 2026, 12:13 GMT. SimSift earns commission from some links on this site, including Back Market. That never changes what our data shows. How we make money.