>> perpetually listed as 50% off of $8

>Isn't that quite dishonest? I'm fairly sure this is illegal in at least the UK, so I'd assume in plenty other EU countries too. Are you in the US? Is this practice legal there?

That's weird, are people in the UK not able to see through marketing gimmicks?

Apparently most of us can't, or it wouldn't be worth using them. ;)

Really you could consider it a subset of truth in advertising law though. How can it be a 50% discount if it's never been sold at full price for a significant amount of time?

Basically what happened is that I did sell it for $8, then I did a 50% sale and saw an increase in sales. I did the sale on and off a few times then just got lazy and didn't get around to removing the sale flag from the website for a while and eventually I just decided that most people only buy it once, so from their perspective it's on sale now. It also saved the effort of remembering to switch the pricing back and forth every few weeks.

this practice is so prevalent here in the US I cant imagine it being illegal

You are wrong. Many states have laws against this type of deceptive pricing, and it's against the FCC's guidelines as well: http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=0fe5a1d5614a06c2f27...

and yet we dont care when Manning tech books always have a discount someway somehow. there's almost always a deal of the day. just have patience. I know it's not technically perpetual but it has the same effect.

Joseph A Bank was sued for perpetual sales [1]. The case was dismissed for defects in the plaintiff's case unrelated to the legal theory (they couldn't produce receipts of their supposed purchases), but of course even an unsuccessful lawsuit of this nature could bankrupt a startup.

Of course, without deep pockets, a startup is also unlikely to be targeted for this.

1: http://business.time.com/2012/06/11/can-you-sue-a-store-for-...

That would be illegal in Ireland, and presumably accross the EU.