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  3. /Markdown (sale or promotion)
Glossary

What is markdown (sale or promotion)?

A SKU selling below its full price, whether labeled a sale, a promotion or a markdown.

Definition

A SKU is marked down when the price a shopper pays on the page is below the retailer's own full (before-markdown) price. Data Purl treats sales, promotional prices and clearance markdowns the same way: what matters is that the displayed price is below full price.

How Data Purl measures it

Each week Data Purl records the selling price and the full price shown for every tracked SKU. The share of the range marked down is markdown breadth; the size of the reduction is discount depth.

Why it matters

Markdowns are the clearest outside-in signal of inventory pressure and pricing power, and they are visible weekly, well before a company reports.

Pitfalls

  • Discounts applied only at checkout, through loyalty schemes or with codes are not visible on the product page and are not counted.

Related

Markdown breadthDiscount depthPromotional intensity

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Data Purl

Data Purl is an eCommerce pricing and assortment data provider that turns public retailer websites into investment-grade data: SKU-level price, discount, availability and assortment history across 400+ retailers back to 2013, with brands resolved to their owners, public or private, and listed owners mapped to tickers.

+44 20 8125 3010 (UK)+1 212-660-0780 (US / International)

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400+
retailers
1,900+
public companies mapped
4,000
product categories
2013
history back to

© 2026 Data Purl. All rights reserved. Data Purl is a trading name of Cleveland Alternative Data Limited, a company registered in the United Kingdom with company number 16234509.