Bedroom and fitted furniture specialist Hammonds Furniture has had three adverts banned after the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled they were misleading, following a challenge by rival Sharps Furniture Group.

The ASA investigated two ads seen on Hammonds’ website in May 2025, a homepage banner promoting time-limited discounts and a page titled “Why choose Hammonds?”.

The watchdog upheld all three complaints raised against the company.

The first issue related to a banner ad stating: “Up to 40% off selected finishes + an extra 5% offer ends in…” accompanied by a countdown timer. The ASA found that consumers were likely to interpret the message as a single promotion ending when the timer expired.

However, Hammonds – a family-run fitted furniture brand with more than 90 years in business – confirmed the “extra 5%” offer expired on 26 May 2025, while the “up to 40% off” promotion continued for another week, until 2 June 2025.

The ASA ruled the lack of distinction between the two offers was likely to pressure consumers into making a purchase under the false impression that the entire promotion was about to end.

The ad was deemed misleading under CAP Code rules covering promotional conditions and time-limited offers.

The second and third issues centred on statements on the “Why choose Hammonds?” page, which read “We won’t be beaten on quality and price” and “Because we design and make everything ourselves, we can offer you better quality furniture at a price others can’t beat”.

Sharps challenged whether these claims could be substantiated or verified.

Hammonds argued that the wording referred to its price match promise, which guarantees to match a lower quote from a competitor for a like-for-like design.

The ASA said the ad made no mention of a price match scheme, nor directed consumers to details about it and the regulator concluded consumers were likely to interpret the statements as absolute lowest-price claims, implying Hammonds offered furniture cheaper than competitors.

The company’s evidence – seven market price checks conducted between February 2024 and August 2025, all against a single rival – was deemed insufficient to substantiate the claim. The ASA further noted that Hammonds’ bespoke business model made such comparisons difficult to verify.

Also, because the ad did not include, or link to, sufficient information for consumers to verify the comparative claims, the ASA also ruled the statements breached rules on verifiability of comparisons with identifiable competitors.

The ASA concluded that all three complaints were upheld and instructed Hammonds Furniture to amend its advertising.

“The ads must not appear again in their current form,” the ruling stated.

“We told Hammonds Furniture Ltd to ensure future advertising did not misleadingly imply that discount offers were time-limited if that was not the case, and not to make comparative price claims unless they held adequate substantiation and could be verified.”

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