We read Amazon.in's popularity-sorted results for water purifier ro, water purifier under 10000 and ro uv water purifier on 2 September 2026 — 47 rows, 34 distinct products. Six of the 34 carried a 99 per cent discount badge, and in every one of those six the MRP printed on the search tile was exactly one hundred times the selling price. We opened all six product pages and read the M.R.P. field there: not one matched. The KENT New Grand's product page says Rs. 23,000, not Rs. 13,89,900; the Pureit Classic says Rs. 3,500, not Rs. 2,99,900. Set those six aside and the shelf is readable: 28 listings from Rs. 3,956 to Rs. 18,499, median Rs. 8,739 at 46 per cent off, 20 of them under Rs. 10,000. Aquaguard, KENT, Pureit, Livpure and Havells sit at 20 to 57 per cent off; Aqua X Pure, PROVEN, AquaUltra and Addyz at 71 to 83. Below: the full 100x table, every brand grouped, and both price bands listed out with review counts.

We read both water purifier shelves on the morning of 2 September 2026 — Amazon.in's popularity-sorted results for three queries (34 products, six excluded for showing an MRP exactly 100 times the price) and Croma's results for two queries (55 listings). Amazon's median is Rs. 8,739 at 46 per cent off with 71 per cent of the shelf under Rs. 10,000; Croma's is Rs. 19,490 at 26 per cent off with 16 per cent under Rs. 10,000. The 2.2x gap is not markup. Five brands priced Rs. 3,956 to Rs. 5,690 — AQUA D PURE, Aqua X Pure, PROVEN, AquaUltra and Addyz — appear only on Amazon and pull its median down, while AO Smith and Croma's own brand appear only on Croma, which also stocks each shared brand further up its range. Where both carry the same brand it splits: Havells was cheaper on Amazon with no overlap between the ranges, and the Native M0 was Rs. 13,499 on both.

Sixty-three refrigerator, washing machine, microwave and OTG listings from croma.com's own search on 2 September 2026, with every price, MRP, discount, rating and rating count as Croma displays them. A fridge and a washing machine cost about the same at the median — Rs. 17,690 and Rs. 18,190 — while microwaves sit at Rs. 9,990 and the OTG shelf starts at Rs. 1,849. The discount percentages track the maker rather than the category: Croma's own-brand appliances run 0 to 54 per cent off, and 19 of those 20 listings carry an MRP that is an exact round thousand, against two of the 43 brand-name listings. The largest brand-name discount on the page is 34 per cent and the largest rupee saving is Rs. 24,000 on LG's Rs. 67,990 466-litre fridge. Only 15 of 63 listings have ten or more ratings behind their score.

Amazon India's fan listings held 46 unique products on 1 September 2026, from Rs. 599 to Rs. 4,099, and splitting them by motor type gives the number that actually decides the purchase. A BLDC 1200mm ceiling fan runs a median of Rs. 2,999; a conventional induction 1200mm fan runs Rs. 1,712. That is a premium of about Rs. 1,287, roughly 75 per cent, bought for a stated 28–35 W draw against roughly 70 W. The discount badges run the other way to the price: table fans, the cheapest group, carry the deepest median cut at 48 per cent, and BLDC fans the shallowest at 41. And one fan makes the case against reading badges at all — the atomberg Renesa Enzel appears twice at the same Rs. 3,849 price with two different stated MRPs, showing 25 per cent off on one listing and 32 per cent on the other, with the identical 48,409 ratings on both.

Amazon India's cookware listings held 89 unique products on 1 September 2026, from Rs. 314 to Rs. 12,999 — and 20 of them state an MRP that cannot be a list price. Sixteen are the same pattern: the stated MRP is the selling price divided by the number of pieces the title says the set contains. A Bergner “4 Pcs” set sells at Rs. 2,196 against a stated Rs. 549, exactly a quarter; a Vinod “25-Piece” box sells at Rs. 7,399 against Rs. 295. The other four state exactly 100 times the price and display as 99 per cent off. Across the 69 listings with a usable MRP the median is 29 per cent off, a flat shelf by Amazon standards. Hawkins discounts 5 to 7 per cent and holds the largest rating pool here — 39,751 on one cooker — while Pigeon runs 5 per cent on some listings and 54 per cent on others.

We pulled Amazon India's popularity-sorted air purifier results on 30 August 2026 and read 22 machines priced Rs. 1,299 to Rs. 84,485. This shelf inverts the usual pattern: the customer evidence sits at the expensive end. The WINIX 5500-2 at Rs. 15,998 carries 27,490 ratings at 4.6 and the Coway Airmega 150 at Rs. 16,999 carries 6,532 at 4.7, while the five listings under Rs. 5,000 average between 3.2 and 3.7 and the cheapest, at Rs. 1,299, states neither a coverage area nor a HEPA grade. Coverage runs from 160 to 1,881 square feet and does not track price — a Rs. 8,410 Philips states more coverage than a Rs. 13,990 Cuckoo. One listing carries a broken struck price of Rs. 217 against a Rs. 9,130 selling price, which we flag as a data defect.

We pulled Reliance Digital's air purifier listings on 30 August 2026: eleven results, ten of them purifiers running Rs. 5,159 to Rs. 58,849, and not one publishing a rating. The eleventh is a Philips HU4706 at Rs. 790 carrying the biggest badge in the results, 87 per cent — and it is a humidifier, not a purifier, so we flag it rather than count it. The badge shrinks as the price rises: LG's Rs. 58,849 Puricare is 2 per cent off and Philips' AC3220 4, against 48 per cent on the Rs. 5,159 Honeywell Touch V1. Read against Amazon the same day, the catalogues barely overlap — Dyson and LG here, WINIX and Coway there — and where a model appears on both, the Eureka Forbes 270 is Rs. 9,099 at each while the Philips AC4221 is Rs. 2,052 cheaper on Amazon.

We pulled Amazon India's popularity-sorted water heater results on 30 August 2026 and read 29 machines priced Rs. 949 to Rs. 8,599. The shelf splits into instant geysers of 1 to 6 litres, which suit a sink or a bucket and run Rs. 1,599 to Rs. 4,163 from known brands, and storage geysers of 10 to 25 litres, which is what a shower needs, at Rs. 3,197 to Rs. 8,599. The biggest badge in the pull is 99 per cent, on an AO Smith at Rs. 4,199 against a struck Rs. 4,19,900 — exactly a hundred times the price, which is a units error rather than an offer, and we flag it as such. The crowd sits with the national brands: Crompton's 25-litre has 29,408 ratings at 3.9 and Havells' 3-litre 14,030 at 4.2, while everything under Rs. 2,500 has between zero and seven.

Three refrigerator searches on amazon.in on 28 August 2026 returned 46 unique listings from Rs. 11,990 to Rs. 53,990. Converted to rupees per litre the shelf splits cleanly: 15 single-door direct-cool models at a median Rs. 14,190 and Rs. 76 a litre, against 12 frost-free double doors at a median Rs. 26,640 and Rs. 112 a litre - a 47 per cent premium on every litre before capacity is counted. Three product lines appear at more than one BEE star rating, so the price of a star is readable directly: Rs. 500 and Rs. 800 a step on Haier's 190 L, Rs. 600 on Godrej's 180 L, but Rs. 2,270 on Voltas Beko's 183 L. The badges do not track the evidence - the best-reviewed fridge here, Samsung's 183 L 4 star at 4.3 from 4,560 reviews, badges 23 per cent, while one SHARP listing badges 99 per cent on an MRP printed a hundred times too high.

We read croma.com's 33 refrigerator listings and amazon.in's 46 on the same day, 28 August 2026, and looked for fridges that match on brand, capacity, BEE star rating and cooling type. Four do, and Amazon is cheaper on all four: Rs. 800 on Haier's 190 L 2 star, Rs. 1,300 on the 3 star, Rs. 2,300 on Haier's 240 L frost free and Rs. 3,700 on Samsung's 236 L. The gap widens with the size of the fridge. Croma's answer is its own brand - seven models Amazon does not carry, including a 185 L at Rs. 12,790 that works out at Rs. 69 per litre against Amazon's best of Rs. 73, and the largest single door in either read at 251 L. Croma also goes far higher, with six listings above Amazon's entire range and the only LG refrigerators either shelf carried.

We read 36 non-sponsored Amazon listings across five microwave searches on 27 August 2026 and seated 20, Rs. 2,509 to Rs. 25,740. Three things stand out. Eight of the 36 listings are not microwaves at all - they are oven-toaster-grills, which bake with heating elements and cannot microwave anything, and they occupy the whole shelf below Rs. 5,190. The discount badge runs opposite to the customer evidence: the 13 listings with 1,000-plus ratings carry a median 15 per cent off, while the nine with fewer than ten ratings carry up to 45. And two listings state an MRP exactly one hundred times their price - Rs. 8,49,900 on a Rs. 8,499 grill and Rs. 16,99,000 on a Rs. 16,990 convection - which Amazon renders as 99 per cent off. Both are seated with the badge zeroed and the error named.

We read Amazon's washing machine shelves on 26 August 2026 across three searches and seated 21 machines priced Rs. 4,999 to Rs. 34,690, every price and stated MRP taken from Amazon's own results the same day. One word covers three appliances here, and each has its own price per kilogram of drum. Semi-automatics run Rs. 588 to Rs. 1,899 a kilogram, fully automatic top loaders Rs. 2,320 to Rs. 2,856, and front loaders Rs. 3,061 to Rs. 4,399 - so a kilogram of front-load capacity costs up to seven times a kilogram of the cheapest semi-automatic. The sharpest case is a 10.5 kg VW semi-automatic at Rs. 9,999: it holds more laundry than every automatic machine in this read and costs less than all of them. Within Bosch's own front-load range the rate falls as the drum grows, from Rs. 4,199 a kilogram at 7 kg to Rs. 3,854 at 9 kg.

We ran the same three washing-machine searches on Amazon and Flipkart on 26 August 2026 and matched every machine we could on brand, drum capacity and machine type. Eighteen pairs matched, and twelve of them carry exactly the same price to the rupee - a Bosch 9 kg front loader at Rs. 34,690 on both, a Midea 8 kg at Rs. 24,490 on both, four Samsung semi-automatics level. On the six pairs that do differ, Flipkart is cheaper every single time and Amazon never is, by Rs. 1,149 to Rs. 3,896 and Rs. 13,248 in total. The caveat we flag on every row: neither store prints a model number in its title, so those six may be different models sharing three attributes. Across the whole shelf Flipkart's median price per kilogram is lower in all three machine types, but its search returned 121 listings to Amazon's 43 - and Amazon holds the cheapest kilogram we found anywhere, at Rs. 588.

We read Amazon India's kitchen chimney shelf on 26 August 2026 across three queries and seated 22 models priced Rs. 4,199 to Rs. 25,749. Two of them carry a discount badge of 99 per cent, and in both cases the reason is the same: the stated MRP is exactly one hundred times the selling price. RUWA's Rs. 4,199 chimney lists against Rs. 4,19,900 and Glen's Rs. 24,999 KOPPA against Rs. 24,99,900 - a price field entered in paise rather than a discount. Because the badges on this shelf cannot be compared, every card here prices the specification the category is actually sold on: suction in m3/hr. That rate runs from about Rs. 4.7 per m3/hr on an INALSA at Rs. 5,199 to Rs. 15.6 on the Glen KOPPA. Rating counts repeat across hood widths too - Elica's 60 cm and 90 cm 1350 m3/hr chimneys both show 4,459 ratings, Faber's two autoclean models both show 678 - so a large count often describes a model rather than the width you are buying.

We pulled both retailers' own air conditioner listings on 26 August 2026 - 27 models at Vijay Sales, 42 at Croma - and found six configurations stocked by both at the same brand, tonnage, star rating and type. Vijay Sales is cheaper on four of them, by Rs. 1,501 to Rs. 4,211, including all three Daikin models. Croma is cheaper on two, by Rs. 1,300 on a Carrier and Rs. 2,000 on a Godrej. The discount badges cannot settle it, because the same air conditioner carries a different MRP at each shop: Daikin's 1.5 ton 3 star is struck from Rs. 56,100 at Vijay Sales and Rs. 55,100 at Croma, and the Voltas MRPs differ by Rs. 4,000. Evidence is asymmetric too - Croma publishes a rating on 27 of its 42 listings, though the deepest sample on the shelf is 38 voters and fifteen are rated by fewer than five people, while Vijay Sales publishes no rating on any of its 27. Neither price includes installation.