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

September 26, 2026

Price Lab 2.0 Benchmark Report

Test date: September 26, 2026

10 queries tested; 0 fake winners manufactured — all incomplete offers held at Provisional or No Qualifier

Unknown shipping is not free shipping, and an incomplete comparison is better than a fake winner. Here's what happened when we refused to manufacture winners from 10 fresh queries.

Products Tested

Safety 1st Compact Cool Mist Humidifier — Humidifier (Walmart $19.94; shipping shown but no unambiguous ZIP-10001 no-membership charge established — Provisional)
Oster Turbo 5-Speed Blender — Blender (Walmart $22.98; shipping shown but charge not conclusively established — Provisional)
Mainstays 17-inch LED Desk Lamp — Desk lamp (Walmart $7.46; shipping shown but charge not conclusively established — Provisional)
No qualifier — Contigo travel mug (No candidate met the full verification standard; shipping evidence insufficient)
Rubbermaid TakeAlongs 16-piece set — Rubbermaid containers ($7.88; shipping shown arrives today but charge not conclusively established — Provisional)
Shark Cyclone CH700WM — Shark handheld vacuum ($48.00; free shipping displayed — Provisional)
BLACK+DECKER HHVI315JO42 (manufacturer-confirmed model) — BLACK+DECKER HHVI315JO42 (Walmart also carries it; manufacturer showed free shipping but inspected page did not expose a reliable item price — No qualifier)
Logitech K120 Wired Keyboard — Logitech K120 keyboard (Best Buy $12.99; shipping shown but inspected/cached location not conclusively ZIP 10001 — Provisional)
Lodge L5SK3 8-inch Cast Iron Skillet — Lodge L5SK3 skillet (Home Depot $17.90; no ZIP-specific shipping charge established — Provisional)
OXO 11283800 1.5-quart POP food-storage container — OXO 11283800 (Disqualified as query mismatch — OXO 11283800 is a POP container, not a measuring cup. Engine correctly refused to substitute a different product.)

Competitors Tested

AI Price Search

What AI Price Search Got Right

Refused to convert delivery timing into free shipping
Refused to convert missing shipping charges into $0 shipping
Refused to convert an unverified location into ZIP-10001 verification
Correctly identified OXO 11283800 as a POP food-storage container and did not substitute a measuring cup to manufacture a match
Held all incomplete offers at Provisional or No Qualifier rather than declaring a fake winner

What AI Price Search Got Wrong

Could not conclusively establish ZIP-10001 shipping charges for several Walmart and Home Depot listings
Could not establish a reliable item price for the BLACK+DECKER HHVI315JO42 manufacturer page
Logitech K120 shipping location was not conclusively ZIP 10001 from the inspected/cached page
Contigo travel mug produced no candidate meeting the full verification standard

Results

#null AI Price Search — Verification-limited run. Engine correctly refused to convert incomplete shipping, location, and identity evidence into confident winners. No generalized engine failure established.

Run This Search Yourself

Verify these results on AI Price Search:

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.

Retest Status

Verification-limited run — no new generalized engine failure established. Next Price Lab run should continue using fresh products and merchant verification. Do not create product-specific fixes from these examples.

Methodology

Data window: September 26, 2026. Analysis based on 10 searches run on aipricesearch.com. Prices are point-in-time snapshots and may have changed since capture. Free to cite with a link to this page.

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