How can this possibly work?
Monday, October 15, 2012 at 2:30AM Best Buy is fighting back in a big way this holiday season against “showrooming,” the practice of checking out a product at an offline store and then buying it for less on the internet. The struggling electronics seller says its workers now have the leeway to match online retailers’ lower prices when trying to close a sale. The new policy signals a sharp shift for Best Buy, which hopes to undercut the main reason would-be customers go home empty-handed and order from Amazon instead.
The price-matching move comes alongside another push by Best Buy to torpedo other advantages enjoyed by online rivals. The company says that if the product you want isn’t at the store, they’ll ship it to you for free. More at Wired.
How can this work with all of the extra overheads, staff and everything else that is required to run bricks and mortar stores?
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Reader Comments (3)
It's do or die; some very big names in the USA have already died. It sounds as though they're only going to offer the lower prices in order to close a sale, so only canny shoppers are likely to get the discount. Better to make a smaller return than no return at all, but it's still a desperate move.
In Canada, Future Shop, originally Canadian but bought by Best Buy, has done this for quite a while now. They'll match Canadian online prices, not U.S. and the product must be in stock. About 6 months ago, I tried to match prices at the Best Buy across the road from the Future Shop and they said they would match the price less shipping costs. I wonder if their policy will change.
A lot of this is about the customer experience. If you satisfy the customer on the current sale, the hope is that they'll come back for the next and that's where you'll make some money.
If you go into Dixons at heathrow airport they promise to price match Amazon and John Lewis. In practise they do on specific items, but on memory cards and accessories they charge a lot more, and I suspect a lot of bricks'n'mortars stores know people will want to buy a few accessories for their new device and will probably want to buy them them ASAP rather than wait a week for online delivery!
A friend went into PC World to buy a router in a hurry and the assistant was very helpful and said that the in-shop price was too high, did a reserve-and-collect for him, and he saved £15 or more on the £60 unit!
I bought a satellite receiver from Maplin after going into the shop to inspect it, I went to the car park, went online, reserved it online via topcashback and also used a discount token, and when I got the email to say the item was now reserved for me, went back in and paid and collected it; saved about £20!!