Home Goods Show a Sale Price in 42.8% of Google Shopping Listings vs 29.6% Overall

A shopper searches Google for a floor lamp and opens the Shopping tab. Four of the first ten lamps show a crossed-out price and a new, lower one. The lamp from a small independent store, priced the same every day, sits among them with no strike-through. Before reading a single product description, the shopper has already compared "sale" against "full price".

That first comparison matters to any store that sells through Google Shopping. A sale price is a signal shoppers notice at a glance, and it sits next to your listing whether or not you discount. Knowing how common sale pricing is, how deep it goes and which sellers use it tells you what your listing is up against.

Sale pricing is everywhere. 29.6% of Google Shopping listings show a sale price, in late September with no major holiday in sight, and the median markdown is 25%. In home goods, 42.8% of listings are on sale. Some large retailers show a sale price on most of their listings, while others almost never do.

The study covers US Google Shopping results for 4,957 product searches, collected on September 23, 2026 through a licensed search data provider, with up to 100 listings per search, 579,303 listings in all. For each listing we noted the price, the seller, the product category of the search and any sale or price badge Google displayed.

A listing counts as on sale when it shows a crossed-out original price above the current price, or a percent-off tag. The markdown is the gap between the original and the current price, as a share of the original: a $100 item sold for $75 has a 25% markdown. The median is the middle value, so half of discounted listings show a bigger markdown and half a smaller one. Google's "Low price" badge is a label Google adds to some listings on its own.

Most markdowns are moderate. The median discount on a sale listing is 25%, a quarter off, and 14% of sale listings show half off or more. Google's own "Low price" badge is far rarer, appearing on 2.8% of listings, so the sale signals a shopper sees come mostly from sellers, not from Google.

Sale pricing runs across the whole price range, peaking in the middle. Listings priced $100 to $250 show a sale price most often, at 32.6%, and listings under $25 least often, at 25.6%.

Home products show a sale price on 42.8% of listings, well above any other large category. Office supplies (36.3%) and gaming (34.9%) follow. Health products are discounted least, at 16.5%, and kitchen products (23%) and kids' products (24%) also sit well below average. Apparel and fitness have the deepest typical markdowns, at about 30% off.

A home goods store on Google Shopping should expect roughly four in ten competing listings to show a crossed-out price. Health products sit at the other end: fewer than one listing in five shows a sale price, so a genuine discount on a health product stands out far more than the same discount on a lamp or a rug.

The seller matters more than the category. Among sellers with at least 2,000 listings, Bed Bath & Beyond shows a sale price on 70.2% of its listings, Wayfair on 66.1%, Etsy sellers on 65.6% and Macy's on 64.5%. At the other end, Walmart shows one on 21%, Sephora on 7.8%, eBay on 4.7% and IKEA on 1.5%.

These are different pricing models, not better or worse ones. Some retailers run frequent promotions and show them in their product listings; others rarely show a sale price at all. Where many sellers show a sale price, a listing without one competes against a crossed-out number on the same screen, whatever its actual price.

Check your competition product by product. Search Google Shopping for your top products and count how many rival listings show a sale price. In home goods, expect about four in ten; in health, fewer than one in five. That tells you whether a listing without a markdown will stand out or blend in.

Discount selectively. With a median markdown of 25%, a 5% discount will not look like a sale next to its neighbors. Put real promotions on the products where competition is heaviest, make sure the sale price and original price in your product feed are accurate, and measure the effect on clicks before extending it.

If you never discount, compete on what the listing can show instead: shipping speed, free returns, ratings and clear product titles. A google shopping agency can test sale pricing and feed changes against click-through and conversion data before you commit to either model.

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