Quince quashes consumer suit; reasonable consumers must scroll a bit to understand comparison to "traditional retail"

In re Last Brand, Inc. d/b/a Quince Pricing Litig., 2026 WL 3151517, No. 25-cv-09780-EMC (N.D. Cal. Oct. 21, 2026)

Putative class plaintiffs sued Quince under the consumer protection laws of nine states (California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Washington), and the District of Columbia. They alleged that Quince’s pricing is deceptive, “either because strike-through pricing and a “You save X%” message on each product page mislead consumers into believing the product is on sale, or because information on the product page comparing the Quince product to similar products sold by other retailers misleads consumers into believing that Quince’s products are comparable to or better than the products sold by those other retailers.” Just as Quince defeated a competitor false advertising claim, it did the same here.

On each product page on its website, Quince uses strike-through pricing on what it calls “traditional retail” prices and claims that consumers “save X%” by purchasing the product through Quince. This “traditional retail” price is based on what different retailers charge for a similar product. For example, the “traditional retail” price for the Mongolian Cashmere Crewneck Sweater is based on what J.Crew charges for a cashmere sweater. The price Quince charges is not a “sale” price.

Quince cashmere

Each product page has a table titled “Beyond Compare” below the “Add to Cart” button and product details; on mobile it’s below product reviews. The table compares the featured Quince item to a curated selection of products from high-end brands that are being sold at higher prices than the Quince item. Quince allegedly only includes “higher-priced luxury brands such as J.Crew, Everlane, and Naked Cashmere” in the table and excludes products from “mid-tier or value-oriented brands.” It does not provide links to the other retailers’ products or an explanation of how it selects the products it includes. The table allegedly is designed to highlight attributes of a product where Quince performs well, such as “Free Shipping,” while omitting characteristics where Quince may not perform as well, such as resale value.

The table includes an “i” icon that, if hovered over, shows the text: “Competitor information gathered in [MONTH AND YEAR]; pricing is subject to change.” There’s no similar disclosure next to the product’s price or the struck-through reference price.

Quince also uses terms such as “discounted” and “steals” to refer to its products in advertising and on its website. Its website claims that it “keep[s] prices low by using a factory-direct model that cuts out the supply-chain middlemen and reduces costs.”

Plaintiffs alleged that they reasonably understood the crossed-out price to represent a price at which Quince or other retailers had previously sold identical products, but that wasn’t true.

The parties didn’t dispute that the “reasonable consumer” standard was the same across the states, requiring “a probab[ility] that a significant portion of the general consuming public or of targeted consumers ... could be misled.”

The court rejected both of plaintiffs’ theories of deception (identical item previously sold at higher price; same/better quality than the competitor’s comparator product).

As for the “sale price” theory, the phrase “traditional retail” wouldn’t lead a reasonable consumer to believe that either Quince or another retailer sold an identical product for the higher price and that the Quince price was a “sale” price. A reference price juxtaposed with a selling price can be plausibly deceptive “where the product was sold exclusively by the retailer and had never been sold at the higher reference price.” That can happen with “Compare At,” “Save X%,” “20% off regular price purchases,” and “sale” labels. But “traditional retail” is different: “No reasonable consumer could think that ‘traditional retail’ refers to the regular non-sale price of the same product.” Even if the term were ambiguous, the “Beyond Compare” table on the same page clarifies things. E.g., the “Beyond Compare” table for Quince’s Mongolian Cashmere Crewneck Sweater shows that Quince’s product is made of “100% Grade-A Mongolian Cashmere,” while the compared products are not. “Traditional retail” “clearly refers to prices charged by other retailers for a comparable product.”

Would a reasonable consumer consult the table when determining whether this was a “sale”?

It appears to be a question of first impression whether information partway down a webpage should be considered part of the “front label” or “back label.” While “clicking on [a] question mark icon ... , clicking [a] toggle ... , or [navigating to the] Terms of Use or Frequently Asked Questions ” on a website constitutes “more extensive investigation than simply flipping a product over to read the back label,” there is no such barrier here. A Quince consumer would not need to scroll far on the product page to see the “Beyond Compare” table. While the table appears below the “Add to Cart” button, it is on the same webpage as the product and does not require navigating to another page or clicking on any buttons or toggles. And it is fairly proximate to the “Add to Cart” button. Certainly, scrolling partway down the webpage to view the table in this instance is less onerous than flipping over a physical product to read its back label. Thus, the “Beyond Compare” table should be considered as something a reasonable consumer would see.

Even without the table, the top of the product page, with the strike-through price and “traditional retail” text, was sufficiently ambiguous, with “no obvious discernible meaning; if anything, it begs for an explanation, and thus a reasonable consumer would ‘necessarily require more information before reasonably concluding’” what it means.

As for the comparability theory, it was viable only if plaintiffs alleged that Quince’s products were in fact of inferior quality to the products to which they are compared. The FTC guidelines, which the court found useful, refer to comparisons to “other merchandise of like grade and quality,” and plaintiffs didn’t make any allegations that Quince’s products weren’t comparable in quality.