You put me on the spot there - I work in the industry so I don't want to call anyone in particular out on that.what companies/sites are marking up their prices to then discount at the lower price?
There are some that increased the price of their full retail a few weeks ago to offer better % sale off prices and then there are some that normally have a retail price slashed thru and a different price as their all the time price, that in the lead up to the sales they reverted to the full retail price just to give the appearance they would be discounting more.
That is sadly a pretty common practice and not just in this industry.
A particular website that my daughter likes and has a wish list on, I saw the prices went up on almost everything she had marked a couple weeks ago and now its 'on sale' for the same price or close to it that it already was.
Amazon sellers are terrible about that too. I bought my daughter an inexpensive smart watch on there, one just meant to be one that if it got messed up would be no big deal. I paid 30 bucks for it 2 months ago. Now, its 49.99 marked down to 29.99 for Black Friday sales lol.