“(perpetual sale banner — "Courses from $9.99" or similar discount messaging)”
When every visit shows a sale, the sale means nothing. Visitors learn to ignore the banner, and worse — they anchor on $9.99 as the "real" price, making $50-$100 courses feel like ripoffs. Fake urgency erodes trust across the entire marketplace.
“Remove perpetual sale banners. Replace with: "Most popular this week" trending courses with social proof (student count, rating).”
Social proof urgency ("20,000 students enrolled this month") is real and verifiable. Trending signals create FOMO without the credibility damage of fake discounts.