Price Lab 2.0 — Strict Shipping Verification Run (September 26, 2026)

Overview

On September 26, 2026, we ran a strict shipping verification test using 10 fresh shopping queries. The shopper profile was a US shopper at ZIP 10001, purchasing one unit, standard retail purchase, with no membership or coupon assumptions.

A displayed item price is not automatically a verified delivered price.

If a retailer showed delivery timing but did not establish an unambiguous shipping charge for the test destination, the offer remained Provisional rather than being treated as free shipping.

This is a Price Lab 2.0 benchmark report — transparent testing of our own engine. We publish what we got right, what we got wrong, and what we're doing about it.

Why We Ran This Test

After earlier Price Lab testing exposed product-identity, destination, Best Price, and shipping-verification weaknesses, APS received generalized fixes and regression testing.

This follow-up used 10 fresh shopping queries and deliberately kept a strict shipping standard. The goal was to verify that the engine refuses to convert incomplete evidence into confident claims.

Results

| Query | Best observed candidate | Item price | Shipping evidence | Status | |---|---|---:|---|---| | Humidifier | Safety 1st Compact Cool Mist — Walmart | $19.94 | Shipping shown; arrives tomorrow, but no unambiguous ZIP-10001 no-membership shipping charge established | Provisional | | Blender | Oster Turbo 5-Speed — Walmart | $22.98 | Shipping shown; arrives tomorrow, but charge not conclusively established | Provisional | | Desk lamp | Mainstays 17-inch LED lamp — Walmart | $7.46 | Shipping shown; arrives tomorrow, but charge not conclusively established | Provisional | | Contigo travel mug | No candidate met the full verification standard | — | Shipping evidence insufficient | No qualifier | | Rubbermaid containers | TakeAlongs 16-piece set | $7.88 | Shipping shown; arrives today, but charge not conclusively established | Provisional | | Shark handheld vacuum | Shark Cyclone CH700WM | $48.00 | Free shipping displayed | Provisional | | BLACK+DECKER HHVI315JO42 | Exact manufacturer-confirmed model; Walmart also carries it | Price not reliably established | Manufacturer showed free shipping but the inspected page did not expose a reliable item price | No qualifier | | Logitech K120 keyboard | Best Buy, sold by Best Buy | $12.99 | Shipping shown, but inspected/cached location was not conclusively ZIP 10001 | Provisional | | Lodge L5SK3 skillet | Home Depot 8-inch skillet | $17.90 | No ZIP-specific shipping charge established | Provisional | | OXO 11283800 | Home Depot product page | $17.99 | Shipping not sufficient for comparison | Disqualified as query mismatch |

Important Exact-Model Correction

OXO 11283800 is a 1.5-quart POP food-storage container, not a measuring cup.

The test did not substitute a measuring cup merely to produce a result.

For exact-model searches, the model identifier is authoritative unless trustworthy evidence establishes otherwise.

This is the intended APS behavior: do not reinterpret a pinned exact model simply to manufacture a shopping match.

What This Run Tells Us

This run should NOT be presented as an APS-vs-Google victory or defeat.

It is a verification-limited Price Lab run.

The important result is that the test refused to convert:

• delivery timing into free shipping;
• missing shipping charges into $0 shipping;
• an unverified location into ZIP-10001 verification;
• an incorrect assumed product identity into an exact-model match;
• incomplete merchant evidence into a manufactured winner.

No legitimate APS-vs-Google price winner should be declared from this batch unless both sides have sufficiently comparable qualifying offers.

Price Lab Principle Reinforced

Unknown shipping is not free shipping, and an incomplete comparison is better than a fake winner.

Price Lab 2.0 measures the cheapest trustworthy, comparable offer, not whichever search surface displays the smallest number.

Engineering Interpretation

Classify this run primarily as:

VERIFICATION-LIMITED — NO NEW GENERALIZED ENGINE FAILURE ESTABLISHED

Do not create product-specific fixes from these examples.

The next Price Lab run should continue using fresh products and merchant verification. Standard first-party/major-retailer inventory may qualify as new when presented as normal retail stock with no used, refurbished, renewed, pre-owned, or open-box indication; marketplace/resale offers require stronger condition verification.