They have been doing this ever since I can remember. I recall that they allegedly tried to convince the shopper that it is ‘50%’ or ‘80%’ off. A few times I think it was ‘90% off’. Kudos to Quebec for having the courage to investigate and prosecute. I don’t think it will change much, however. Once, I had a clerk tell me ‘Don’t buy it now, tomorrow it will be 50% off’. He showed me the schedule of ‘price reductions’ for it for the next 12 months. If I waited eight weeks, it would be 75% off.
I’m confident someone has done a price model comparing doing these “fake sales” vs. “real sales” vs. “no sales”, ergo it is possible to quantify the damages. Smart/big businesses don’t make decisions without doing the math first and then testing the price strategy, and that diligence could have been used against them to determine damages.