We read Amazon India's rice cooker, roti maker and electric lunch box shelves on 27 September 2026 - 79 distinct listings, 24 seated here. Capacity is the cheapest thing on the cooker shelf: 1.8-litre models work out at Rs. 1,166 to Rs. 2,111 a litre while 1-litre models cost Rs. 1,619 to Rs. 2,197 a litre. One brand sells a 1-litre single pot at Rs. 1,619 and a 1.8-litre at Rs. 2,099 - 80% more rice for 30% more money. Two listings state an MRP exactly 100 times the selling price (Rs. 2,898 against Rs. 2,89,800), and five state an MRP below it; all seven are excluded from our medians. Two separate Panasonic cookers display the same 10,473 ratings, and the 'roti maker' search returns Rs. 159 manual jali roasters.

We read both water purifier shelves on the same morning, 27 September 2026 - 27 listings at Vijay Sales and 21 on Flipkart. Where they overlap, they are startlingly alike: the Urban Company Native M1 sells for Rs. 15,999 on both, against the same stated Rs. 20,999 MRP, wearing the same 24% badge. The one difference is that Flipkart publishes 4.5 stars from 15,077 ratings and Vijay Sales publishes no rating at all - on that listing or any of its other 26. The headline discount gap (72% against 29%) is a catalogue difference: 12 of Flipkart's 21 listings sell under Rs. 5,000 and Vijay Sales stocks nothing there. Compare Rs. 7,000-plus machines only and the medians are 40% and 28%. And one machine at Rs. 19,499 on both sites wears two different badges, because the two shops struck through two different MRPs.

We read Vijay Sales' water purifier shelf on 27 September 2026 - 27 listings, every one with a price and a stated MRP, with 25 seated here. The finding is that the stage count printed on the box is not a price: six machines state nine purification stages and sell at Rs. 9,499, Rs. 15,199, Rs. 15,999, Rs. 15,999, Rs. 21,800 and Rs. 27,000. Cost per stated stage runs Rs. 1,055 to Rs. 3,400, and the 12-stage machine costs the same per stage as the 6-stage one. One model name lets you price RO exactly: the UV version is Rs. 8,999 and the RO version Rs. 14,990, both with a 6-litre tank - a Rs. 5,991 premium. Not one of the 27 publishes a star rating, so the spec strip is the whole of the evidence.

We read eleven Vijay Sales category pages on 26 September 2026 — 110 listings, each with a selling price and a stated MRP — and sorted them by how much discount each aisle actually displays. Nutri blenders badge a median 48% off. Electronic safes badge 2%, with the best in that 20-listing aisle reaching only 18%. The underlying rule is price: the cheaper half of the shelf shows a median 42% off, the dearer half 22%. And the mechanism is visible — the declared MRP multiple tracks the badge almost exactly, from 1.93x on blenders down to 1.02x on safes. A category discounts more because its sellers declare a higher MRP, not because the cash price moved. None of the 110 listings published a rating.

We read Vijay Sales' small kitchen appliance shelf on 26 September 2026 - 59 listings across six category pages, each with a selling price and a stated MRP, with 22 seated here. Forty-one of the 59 print a wattage in the title, which makes this one of the few appliance shelves where a unit rate can be computed from published data. Sandwich grillers run Rs. 1.46 to Rs. 5.25 a watt; blenders and grinders run Rs. 3.90 to Rs. 13.99. The sharpest case: a 150W portable blender at Rs. 2,099 costs Rs. 13.99 a watt while an 1,100W bullet grinder at Rs. 4,599 costs Rs. 4.18 - 3.3 times dearer per watt, and Rs. 2,500 cheaper in absolute money. Watts are power draw, not performance, and none of the 59 listings publishes a rating.

We read Amazon's and Reliance Digital's air fryer and OTG shelves within the same hour on 21 September 2026. Nine products appear on both under the same manufacturer model number, and Amazon is cheaper than or equal to Reliance Digital on every one - never dearer. Two are identical to the rupee. The finding worth keeping is in the MRP column: on the Morphy Richards 60 RCSS OTG, Amazon states an MRP of Rs. 19,490 and Reliance Digital states Rs. 33,995 for the same model, so the badge reads 20 per cent at the shop charging Rs. 1,500 less and 50 per cent at the one charging more. A discount on one site cannot be compared with a discount on another.

We read Amazon's juicer, chopper and mixer grinder listings on 20 September 2026. Forty came back with a price, an MRP and a rating count; 26 are seated here, from Rs. 158 to Rs. 6,276. Four of the 40 print an MRP exactly 100 times the selling price - Rs. 2,499 against a stated Rs. 2,49,900, Rs. 6,590 against Rs. 6,59,000 - each producing a '99 per cent off' badge that is a data error rather than a price cut. None of them is seated. On the rest of the shelf the badge tracks the brand: Philips prints 13 and 14 per cent, Borosil 17 and 24, Ninja 14, while NutriPro prints 68 and 70. The single best-evidenced listing is a Rs. 1,799 three-jar NutriPro with 4.4 from 20,074 ratings.

We read Flipkart's blending aisle on 18 September 2026 and seated the 25 listings that state a wattage in their own titles, Rs. 148 to Rs. 3,990. Wattage is the number this category sells on and it does not price: five mixer grinders here all state 500 watts and cost Rs. 1,328, Rs. 1,355, Rs. 1,549, Rs. 2,099 and Rs. 3,945, a threefold spread at an identical published specification. Priced per 100 stated watts the page runs from Rs. 30 to Rs. 2,217. At the bottom, a Rs. 148 listing claims 500 watts - more than the Rs. 2,199 Philips claims at 300. And six listings state 50 watts while calling themselves both a hand blender and an electric whisk, which is the commonest way to buy the wrong appliance here. The badges track distribution exactly: Orpat claims 14 per cent, Philips 20, and the marketplace labels 82 and 85.

We read Flipkart's electric kettle shelf on 18 September 2026 and seated 24 listings, Rs. 399 to Rs. 1,699. The finding that changes how you shop it: Pigeon's Favourite kettle is on the shelf twice, at Rs. 499 and at Rs. 786, carrying the identical 673,026 ratings - and the dearer listing advertises the smaller discount, 34 per cent against 63, because each seller picks its own crossed-out figure. Pigeon's multi-cooker repeats it at Rs. 865 and Rs. 1,072. The rating count is what gives it away, and it is reliable: two Prestige kettles at an identical Rs. 699 carry different counts, because they are different kettles. Beyond that, this shelf publishes almost nothing - four of 33 listings state a capacity and two state a wattage.

We read 175 small kitchen appliance listings on croma.com on 16 September 2026 — sandwich makers and toasters, rice cookers and egg boilers, induction cooktops, air fryers and dishwashers — and the first thing to say is how little evidence there is. Only 78 of the 175 publish any rating count, the median of those 78 is three, and just 18 listings in the whole read clear ten ratings. The largest sample on the shelf is 274. The prices span Rs. 849 to Rs. 1,04,490, a factor of 123, and the discount runs opposite to the price: sandwich makers carry a median badge of 32.5 percent, dishwashers just 17. Croma's own label is the cheapest and most heavily discounted name in its own aisle, at a median Rs. 2,924 and 36 percent.

We read eighty-three mixer grinder, gas stove, induction cooktop and water purifier listings on croma.com on 13 September 2026 and seated twenty-four, pricing each one against the spec its category is sold on. Two shelves, two different worlds. Induction is priced by the watt: four single cooktops from 1,350W to 2,200W sit inside a Rs. 126.30 to Rs. 190.43 per-100W band. Mixer grinders are not: the same arithmetic spans Rs. 279.80 to Rs. 1,373.20, and an 1,100W Bosch at Rs. 8,599 undercuts a 750W Preethi at Rs. 10,299. Gas stoves climb at every rung — Rs. 999.50 a burner on a two, Rs. 1,237.25 on a four. And the two cheapest water purifiers carry the two worst ratings on the page.

We read both electric-kettle shelves on 10 September 2026 — 29 listings from Amazon's own search results and 28 from Croma's own listing pages. The median badge is 44% at Amazon and 43% at Croma, one point apart, while the median kettle costs Rs. 1,199 against Rs. 1,424. Two models appear on both and the badge points the wrong way on each: the Havells Aqua Plus is Rs. 1,729 on Amazon at 42% off and Rs. 1,799 at Croma at 48% off, while the AGARO Esteem is Rs. 1,179 at 34% off against Rs. 1,399 at 7% off. The bigger gap is evidence: median rating count 2,005 against 3.

Amazon's oven searches, read on 3 September 2026, hold two shelves under one category name. Across the 62 listings we kept, OTGs run Rs. 1,749 to Rs. 18,367 at a median Rs. 4,499 and a median 47% off, with 18 of 29 under Rs. 5,000 and 20 of 29 badged 40% or more. Microwaves run Rs. 4,890 to Rs. 46,290 at a median Rs. 13,580 and just 15% off, with only four under Rs. 8,000 — the best-rated machine on the shelf, IFB's 30 litre convection, is 9% off, and LG's 20 litre solo is 4% off. The discount is attached to the appliance type rather than to any sale. Two cautions from the data: several brands display one shared rating across models (Pigeon's 9L, 20L and 50L OTGs all show 3.4 from 7,617), and nine listings stated MRPs at 100 times their selling price, rendering as 99% badges; all nine were excluded here.

Eight Vijay Sales kitchen appliance category pages, read on 3 September 2026, hold 131 listings running from Rs. 249 to Rs. 25,800 at a median of Rs. 3,360 and a median 37% off, with 62 under Rs. 3,000 and 12 under Rs. 1,000. The air fryer is the shelf that has moved: it starts at Rs. 2,615, carries a median 44% off, and five of the aisle's six deepest badges are air fryers — against a median mixer grinder price of Rs. 6,318. Hand blenders are the opposite, cheap to enter at Rs. 699 but the shallowest discounts on the aisle at a median 19%. By brand, Lifelong runs a median 70% off and KENT 54%, while Philips runs 24% across its 20 listings and Ninja 14% at a median Rs. 10,999. Vijay Sales publishes no ratings on these cards, so price and stated MRP are the only numbers available.

We queried Croma's own search service on 28 August 2026 for kettles, toasters, sandwich makers and hand blenders and got 70 listings; this page covers the 49 non-kettle ones, priced Rs. 499 to Rs. 5,995. Two of them share an identical description - Croma 800W 2 Slice Pop-Up Toaster with Removable Crumb Tray - and sell at Rs. 1,094 in green and Rs. 3,599 in peach, against stated MRPs of Rs. 2,500 and Rs. 5,400. They are separate SKUs and the listings publish nothing else that separates them; only the cheaper one has ratings. Across the shelf the badge tracks the brand rather than the sale: Croma's own label discounts a median 37 per cent, Philips 13, Shark Ninja a flat 14. Wattage barely predicts price - a Philips 900W toaster undercuts the 650W from the same sub-range - and only 21 of the 49 listings carry a rating at all, the largest count being 41.