This year Black Friday falls on 27 November - just ten days after Croatia's rules on the anchored price and the machine-readable price list start to apply. Here is how to display discounts correctly and get your webshop ready in time.
X200 wireless headphones
Lowest price in the 30 days before the sale: €71.99
Anchored price (10 Sep 2026): €79.99
For most webshops, Black Friday is the busiest weekend of the year. This year it comes with an extra layer: from 17 November 2026, every price in Croatia must be accompanied by an anchored price, and the price list must be published in CSV or XML format. The rule on the lowest price in the last 30 days still applies, so during the sale a product card will show three different numbers.
Get this sorted in advance and you have a sale customers trust. Leave it for the last week and you risk miscalculated discounts, an inconsistent price list and a fine - in the middle of the most important sales weekend.
Below we cover which prices must be visible, how to calculate the discount percentage, where mistakes usually happen and what to prepare technically, with a week-by-week plan. The anchored-price and price-list obligation itself is explained in detail in our guide Anchored price and machine-readable price list.
Six things to know before you set your first sale price.
Cyber Monday is 30 November. Many webshops start their sale a week earlier.
Every price, including the sale price, is shown with the price that applied on 10 September 2026.
For a sale starting on 27 November, the period that counts is 28 October to 26 November.
The CSV/XML file contains the sale price, the name of the special form of sale and the anchored price.
Falsely claiming that an offer lasts only a short time is always an unfair commercial practice.
For anchored-price and price-list failures: €1,000 to €20,000 for sole traders, up to €30,000 for legal entities.
From 17 November, a product card on sale shows more than one price. Each has its own role and its own data source, and none replaces another.
| Price | What it shows | Legal source | When it is shown |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sale price | The price the customer pays during Black Friday | General price display obligation | During the sale |
| Lowest price in 30 days | The lowest price you applied to that product in the 30 days before the sale started | Art. 19 of the Consumer Protection Act (since 2022) | During the sale and in its advertising |
| Anchored price | The price on 10 September 2026, excluding sales and discounts | Government decisions, applying from 17 Nov 2026 | Always, with every price |
| Unit price | Price per kilogram, litre, metre etc. | Existing obligation | Where applicable |
On 10 September the headphones cost €79.99. In October their regular price is €89.99. For 11.11. they were on sale at €71.99, and for Black Friday they go down to €59.99.
The regular price of €89.99 is not the reference here. Had you calculated the discount from it, the card would say -33%, and that would be a misleading claim.
How to display it: make the sale price the most prominent, show the 30-day lowest price as the struck-through reference price next to the percentage, and put the anchored price on a separate, clearly labelled line. Customers should understand which number is which without thinking.
Under Art. 19 of the Croatian Consumer Protection Act, a sale price must be shown together with the lowest price you applied to the same product in the 30 days before the sale started. That price is the reference: if you announce the discount as a percentage, it is calculated from it. The European Commission's guidance on the directive behind this rule reads it the same way.
Round down. A -17% label would already promise more than the actual discount.
Both regular and sale prices. If the product was on any sale during that period, the lowest price is the sale price. The period is calculated for each product separately, from the day it went on sale.
According to interpretations of Art. 19: for loyalty-programme discounts, personalised discounts, payment-method discounts, and combined or conditional offers such as "buy two, pay for one". The anchored price is still shown.
November is full of sales, and each one affects the reference price of the next. These are the situations where discounts are most often miscalculated.
Singles Day (11 November) falls within the 30 days before Black Friday. Any sale price you applied then becomes the reference for the Black Friday percentage. If you plan both sales, plan the prices together.
The reference is the lowest price in 30 days, not the most recent one. A price increase in October does not increase the discount percentage, and the anchored price from 10 September shows customers how the price has moved anyway.
If the sale starts earlier, say on 20 November, the 30-day period is counted from that day: 21 October to 19 November. Products that go on sale on different days have different periods.
If the Black Friday price stayed on until Cyber Monday (30 November), it is part of the 30-day reference for any sale starting by 30 December - Christmas sales included.
A product introduced after 10 September has an anchored price from the day it was first offered. If you launch it just before Black Friday, it has no 30-day price history. The rules do not explicitly cover this case, so it is safer not to advertise such a product as discounted.
| Date | What happens |
|---|---|
| 10 September 2026 | Anchoring day - the price on this day becomes the anchored price |
| 28 October 2026 | Start of the 30-day period for a sale starting on 27 November |
| 11 November 2026 | Singles Day - sale prices become part of the Black Friday reference |
| 17 November 2026 | Anchored price and machine-readable price list start to apply |
| 27 November 2026 | Black Friday |
| 30 November 2026 | Cyber Monday |
| 30 December 2026 | Last start date for a sale whose reference still includes the Cyber Monday price |
From 17 November, the product price list is published in CSV or XML format every working day by 8:00. During Black Friday it must contain the sale price - the retail price with information on the special form of sale - together with the anchored price.
If sale prices go live at 00:00, the file published by 8:00 already contains them. The price list and the site match from the first customer.
The rules require a daily publication by 8:00 but do not say explicitly what to do with prices that change mid-day (flash sales, "happy hours"). We recommend publishing a new file with a new timestamp at every change.
The Black Friday weekend lasts four days. The obligation is tied to working days, but it is safer to publish the file every day the sale runs. Once publication is automated, this costs nothing.
Files from the sale stay available for at least 30 days, each under its own name. Do not overwrite or delete them when the sale ends.
The Croatian Consumer Protection Act, in line with the EU Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, lists practices that are considered unfair in all circumstances - with no case-by-case assessment. Others are judged by whether they can mislead the average customer. These are the most common mistakes in Black Friday campaigns:
A timer that resets on every visit, or a sale that "ends today" and then gets extended. A false claim that a product is available only for a very limited time, made to push a quick decision.
Advertising a product at a sale price without having a reasonable quantity for the expected demand, and without saying so.
Publishing or commissioning fake reviews, or claiming that reviews come from real customers without taking reasonable steps to check.
An "up to -70%" banner must be true: the highest advertised discount must really exist, calculated from the 30-day lowest price, and not on a single token item.
"Only 2 left" must match real stock levels. A counter connected to the warehouse is fine; an invented one is not.
Correct prices mean little if the webshop slows down or crashes when traffic spikes. This is the checklist we go through with every client before a big sale.
Load-test the site with several times your usual traffic before the sale. Turn on caching and a CDN, compress images and remove scripts you do not need.
Never type the 30-day lowest price by hand. Every price change is stored with a date, and the webshop calculates the reference price and percentage from that history.
Enter sale prices in advance with an exact start and end. They switch on at midnight and revert after the sale on their own - no manual work at night and no forgotten discounts.
Sync stock with your warehouse or ERP so you do not sell what you do not have. Reserve items in the cart for a limited time.
Check limits and 3-D Secure with your payment provider. Since 1 January 2026 (Croatia's Fiscalisation 2.0), every invoice to consumers is fiscalised regardless of payment method - your system has to cope with that at peak traffic too.
A large share of sale purchases happens on mobile. Allow guest checkout, cut the number of steps and show the delivery cost before the final step.
Since 2024 Gmail and Yahoo, and since 2025 Outlook, require bulk senders to use SPF, DKIM and DMARC and offer easy unsubscribe. Without them, your sale newsletter lands in spam.
Create a page such as /black-friday and reuse it every year. It keeps collecting links and Google rankings year after year instead of starting from zero each time.
Set up GA4 e-commerce events (product view, cart, checkout, purchase) and UTM tags for the newsletter and ads, so you know what drove sales once the sale ends.
From today to December, step by step.
Check that you have a recorded anchored price (10 September) for every product. Add price history, set up a permanent sale page and check SPF, DKIM and DMARC for your newsletter.
Run a load test. Decide on an 11.11. sale knowing that it lowers the Black Friday reference. Prepare automatic CSV/XML price-list publication.
The rules start to apply. The anchored price is visible on every product page, and the first price-list file is published by 8:00 and accessible to software.
Freeze new feature development and take a backup. Schedule sale prices, test checkout, payment and fiscalisation, and manually check the lowest-price and percentage calculation on a few products.
Prices switch on at midnight, and the price list with the sale name is published by 8:00 every day. Monitor speed, stock and payments. Countdown timers only if they are true.
Prices revert automatically, and the files stay in the archive for 30 days. For Christmas sales starting by 30 December, the reference includes the Black Friday price.
We build new webshops and prepare existing ones: from correct price display to speed under load.
Sale price, 30-day lowest price and anchored price on the product card, with the percentage calculated automatically.
Every price change is recorded with a date, so the discount reference is calculated automatically and is always correct.
With the sale name, an archive of publications and checks that software can access the file.
The start and end of the sale are set in advance. Nobody has to sit at a computer at midnight.
Image and code optimization, caching and a load test before the sale.
GA4 e-commerce events and a results review after the sale, so you know what to repeat next year.
Tell us which platform your webshop runs on and what you plan for the sale. We will suggest what needs doing and give you a rough estimate.
This text is for information only and is not legal advice. It is based on the Croatian Consumer Protection Act, the Government decisions on anchored prices and price-list publication, and publicly available clarifications.
Parts marked as recommendations (price changes during the day, weekend price-list publication, new products without price history) are our interpretation. For a binding interpretation, contact the competent ministry or a legal adviser.
Everything you want to know about prices on Black Friday 2026.
Yes. From 17 November 2026 the anchored price appears next to every selling price, including the sale price. Black Friday on 27 November is the first major sale the rule applies to.
From the lowest price you applied to the same product in the 30 days before the sale started (Art. 19 of the Croatian Consumer Protection Act). Not from the regular price and not from the anchored price.
Singles Day (11 November) falls within the 30 days before Black Friday. The Singles Day sale price becomes the lowest price in that period, so the Black Friday discount is calculated from it.
You can, but it does not increase the discount. The reference is the lowest price in 30 days, not the most recent one, and the anchored price from 10 September 2026 shows customers how the price has moved anyway.
Yes. The product price list contains the retail price with information on the special form of sale and the anchored price. If sale prices start at midnight, the daily file published by 8:00 must already contain them.
Not if they are true. What is banned is falsely claiming that an offer is available only for a very limited time, such as a timer that resets or a sale that "ends today" and then gets extended.
According to interpretations of Art. 19 of the Consumer Protection Act, the 30-day lowest price is not shown for loyalty-programme discounts, personalised discounts, payment-method discounts, or combined and conditional offers such as "buy two, pay for one". The anchored price is still shown next to the price.
Yes. We add price history with automatic calculation of the lowest price and the percentage, anchored-price display, scheduled sales, automatic CSV and XML price-list publication and speed optimization before the sale. Request a quote →
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