What stops a merchant raising in-app prices?
The obvious way to fake a 10% discount is to inflate the reference price. Preventing that is most of the work.
Every discount marketplace faces this. If the struck-through number is whatever a merchant types, the saving is theatre and the trust evaporates the first time somebody checks.
So the in-store price is not a free field. It is supplied at onboarding, verified against the physical menu, and spot-checked afterwards. When a merchant changes counter prices, both numbers move together.
A verified comparison is slower to onboard and it is the only version worth showing.
Customers police it too, more effectively than any process. People notice when the app price and the counter price do not line up, and they tell us. That feedback loop is why the rule holds.
