The lowest item price doesn't always give you the lowest delivered total. We checked a small sample from Qostly, our UK price comparison product, to see where the two differed and where the data wasn't complete enough to compare.
At 12:00 GMT on 2 November 2026, we recorded 25 retailer offers across ten product variants in Qostly's headphones and audio category. The offers came from Back to the Office, PCHUB.UK and Quzo UK. Fifteen had a confirmed delivered total. Ten, or 40% of the sample, had unconfirmed mandatory fees, so their totals remained unknown.
A cheaper item, a slightly higher total
For the Dell DELL-SB521A, Back to the Office's item price was £47.99. Adding £4.99 delivery brought the total to £52.98. Quzo UK's item price was £52.80 with free delivery, making its known total 18p lower.
The difference was small, but the order changed. Sorting those two offers by item price would have put the more expensive delivered option first.
| Dell DELL-SB521A offer | Item | Delivery | Known total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Back to the Office | £47.99 | £4.99 | £52.98 |
| Quzo UK | £52.80 | Free | £52.80 |
Across the fifteen offers with confirmed totals, two had £4.99 delivery added to the item price. The other thirteen had no difference between the listed item price and the known total.
Free delivery doesn't confirm the whole price
For the Apple MW463ZM/A, Qostly showed a £169.99 item price and delivered total from Back to the Office. PCHUB.UK's item price was £167.82 and delivery was shown as free, but mandatory fees weren't confirmed in the data Qostly held.
We couldn't establish a final total for that offer. That doesn't mean a fee would be charged. It means we didn't have enough information to call it the cheaper delivered option. All ten unknown totals in this sample had that same missing-fee status.
Qostly's ranking explanation describes how it handles those gaps: an unknown total stays unknown and follows the offers whose totals are confirmed.
How we collected the sample
We took the first ten product links in the headphones and audio category as served, without adding filters or changing its order. We recorded every tracked retailer offer shown on each product page. That gave us ten product variants and 25 offers. Some variants were different colours of the same model, so these aren't ten independent product families.
For each offer we saved the retailer, item price, delivery label, fee status, delivered total and source URL. We counted each offer once using the page's calculation table, avoiding the duplicate desktop and mobile displays. Collection ran from 12:00:19 to 12:00:22 GMT on 2 November 2026. The pages displayed retailer-data timestamps earlier that morning; our collection time isn't a fresh retailer price check.
This is an observation of Qostly's published data, not a checkout test or a representative survey of UK retailers. We didn't check stock, a delivery postcode, voucher eligibility or the final retailer checkout independently. Category order and Qostly's retailer coverage shaped the sample, and prices can change.
Before buying, check the exact model and condition, the delivery terms for your address, and the final price at checkout. A comparison helps when it shows what is known and leaves missing information visible.
Qostly is a product of Digital Marvels Limited. Qostly retailer links may earn commission; commission doesn't determine offer order.
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