Two thirds of AliExpress "was" prices are about 2x the price. A quarter are exactly 2.00x.

I record one price per AliExpress listing per day and keep it with its date. Today I took the 17,785 listings I have read on 14 or more separate days and divided the seller's crossed-out "was" price by the price actually charged.

I expected a spread. Real former prices should be scattered - some 12% higher, some 40%, some 260%, shaped by whatever actually happened to that product.

That is not what came out.

• 65.5% (11,644 listings) land between 1.95x and 2.25x - "about half off"
• 25.9% (4,614) sit on exactly 2.00x
• 7.8% (1,396) show a "was" price identical to the price charged - a discount of nothing
• Median across all 17,785: 2.04x

A quarter of a catalogue landing on a round number is the signature of a rule being applied, not a history being reported.

Of the 4,614 at exactly 2.00x, 97.8% carry a crossed-out price I have never observed. For the median one, that figure is exactly 2.00x the HIGHEST price I ever recorded - not double today, double the most expensive day I ever caught it on.

Three listings in full, each read on 35 separate days between 6 Aug and 11 Sep 2026:

• TOPK magnetic car phone holder. My range: $14.91-$15.96. Today: $15.96. Seller's "was": $31.92.
• Capybara fur phone case for iPhone 17. My range: $7.16-$7.20 - four cents of movement in five weeks. Today: $7.20. Seller's "was": $14.40.
• YYK Q16 Pro translation earbuds. My range: $25.00-$29.08. Today: $29.08, the top of everything I recorded. Seller's "was": $58.15.

What this does not show:

• 37 days is short. I started recording on 6 August 2026. A price I never saw may well have been real in March. I can only say I did not see it.
• Multi-variant listings ("1/4/10 pieces") distort the measured range, because my reading may catch a different variant on different days. They are still in the totals.
• One reading a day misses anything that moved and moved back inside a day.
• None of this says anything about product quality, shipping, or whether the seller is honest in other ways.

The rows behind this are public and the arithmetic is one division. If you run it and get a different count, I would rather hear about it than not - I have had to correct myself twice already this month.

Revenue is still $0.