Last year, people around the country rallied behind two Walmart employees who they believed were unfairly fired for redeeming $5.10 in discarded soda cans and for waiting half-an-hour to turn in $350 dollars he found in the parking lot. Now, consumers are once again showing support for another cashier of the big box retailer who says he was fired for hugging customers and discounting a jug of tea. [More]
price-matching
This Office Depot Won’t Price-Match Its Own Website
By 3.4.16
Mara was shopping online at OfficeMax Depot (not the company’s actual post-merger name) when she found a package of the labels she needed at a great price. She headed to her local Office Depot store, believing that she would find the same labels at the same price at the store. Wouldn’t that make sense? Yes, it would make a lot of sense. Instead, the labels cost $28.80 more in the store, and employees wouldn’t price-match.. [More]
Target Will Price-Match 29 Competitors’ Websites
By 9.30.15
Beginning tomorrow, October 1, Target will price-match the websites of 29 major retailers in stores and for purchases from their website. These include the usual big names that you might expect, like Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy, but also some major specialty retailers like Sports Authority and cosmetics retailer Ulta. [More]
Always Double Check: Stores And Their Websites Still Sell Things At Wildly Different Prices
By 12.8.14
To we consumers, it feels like a store’s physical locations and their website are, y’know, all still part of the same store, and should be treated as such. But as we’ve found over and over, a chain’s retail storefronts and their web presence can be two very different beasts, with two different sets of inventory — and at two different sets of prices. [More]
Walmart Closes Now-Infamous Online Price-Matching Loophole
By 11.20.14
It was fabulous news for bargain-hunters when Walmart announced a change to its price-matching policy, allowing shoppers to bring in listings from popular online retailers as long as the items are identical. When some shoppers formulated an evil-genius plan to use fake third-party seller Amazon listings to buy PlayStation 4s for less than 25% of the sticker price, the wording of the original policy technically allowed this to happen. Walmart has responded by changing their policy. [More]
Walmart Tells All U.S. Managers They Can Now Price-Match Online Retailers Like Amazon
By 11.13.14
It’s a war out there in the world of retail, and having the lowest prices around is a weapon every brick-and-mortar store has been trying to keep in its arsenal. Not so easy when online retailers like Amazon are constantly lowering prices. All that might change for Walmart, as store managers have been told it’s time to officially start price-matching Amazon and others. [More]
Walmart Might Begin Price-Matching Amazon, Other Online Retailers
By 10.30.14
It’s not uncommon for consumers to view items at a store and then purchase them for a lower price online. One of the nation’s largest retailers is apparently tired of losing those customers and may begin price-matching its online competition this holiday season; a trend retail analysts predicted less than a month ago. [More]
Staples Launches Back-To-School Campaign Just As School Gets Out
By 6.24.14
Staples, the big-box office and school-supplies superstore, isn’t messing around. Sure, the school year hasn’t even ended for the summer in all places in the company’s home state of Massachusetts, but that doesn’t matter. Nope. Staples wants your back-to-school business, and will price-match anyone, even Amazon, to get it. [More]
Price-Matching: The Only Way To Haggle At Chain Retailers
By 3.17.14
Most Americans aren’t very comfortable with haggling, even when they know that it could theoretically benefit them to do so. What you may not realize is that when you visit Walmart with a CVS flyer in hand, asking for a price match, you’re engaging in a form of haggling. [More]
Price-Matching At Radio Shack, Where It’s Always 1992
By 2.6.14
Matthew normally buys electronics online, but likes to get his family’s mobile phones from the local Radio Shack. They’re friendly, helpful, and price-match brick-and-mortar competitors, so why not support keeping local people employed? The last time he stopped by to buy a new phone, though, his price-matching plans went awry. [More]
While Retailers Fall All Over Themselves To Offer Price Matching, Customers Are Kind Of Like, “Eh”
By 12.11.13
We hear a lot of stories about the price-matching policies at various big box retailers like Target and Best Buy, which have evolved a lot since competition from online giants like Amazon have entered the arena. But while most stores now have some kind of price matching going on, does the average customer even really care to take advantage of it? [More]
Why Is This Man Banned From Walmart For Life?
By 12.10.13
Everyone needs a hobby. When an Arizona man had to retire from professional wrestling due to injuries, he says that he began visiting his local Walmart a few times a day, sometimes toting sale flyers from other stores and invoking the store’s price match policy. He never expected to be hauled off in handcuffs for it. (Update: Yep, there was more to the story.) [More]
Price-Matching At Toys ‘R’ Us: No Stacking Discounts On The Lower Price
By 11.26.13
Richard thought that he found a great deal between a sale on a Nintendo 3DS game at Walmart and a promotion with the Toys ‘R’ Us credit card. The store employees stood in his way, not understanding the store’s price-match policy the way he did. He tried to convince corporate to intervene: no luck. No stacked discounts for him. [More]
Barnes & Noble’s Online Price Match Policy Still Confuses Customers, Drives Them Away
By 11.13.13
“Barnes and Noble apparently hates money,” Travis wrote in the subject line while e-mailing us about his most recent shopping experience there. Well, that can’t be: we thought that all stores liked more business and more money, unless they’re massive anti-capitalist pranks like Sears or Lenovo. He stopped by his local Barnes & Noble to use a coupon while getting human interaction. That’s when he collided with Barnes & Noble’s price matching policy. [More]
Target Employees Need To Learn Their Own Price-Matching Policy
By 6.4.13
We don’t want to sit here and lecture Target on how to run its stores, but maybe some people at Jared’s local store could use remedial price-matching policy lessons. Jared wanted them to match an advertised price on something dear to the Consumerist community: cat food. Yes, the store running the sale is Pet Supplies Plus, and the sale price requires a loyalty card, but the card is free. We’re not talking about Costco here. Yet the store refused to budge, even though Target’s written price match policy contradicted what they were saying. [More]
Enjoying Video Games Is Not A Crime, Except Maybe At Target
By 5.29.13
Things that Michael could not be trusted to do at Target: carry a game from the electronics department to the front of the store without stealing it, and provide a reliable price-matching amount from Amazon. It’s totally excellent that they’re willing to price-match Amazon and all, but Michael shared his story because he’s sort of bemused that something as simple as a game got him treated like a criminal. [More]
How My Love Of Diet Pepsi Vanilla Almost Got Me Ejected From Walmart
By 4.23.13
If our readership understands anything, its fanatical devotion to one product and an almost equally fanatical need to make stores follow their own policies. That is how Tom got in serious trouble with the employees of his local Walmart. Or did the local Walmart’s employees get in trouble with Tom? Walmart promises to price-match local competitors, including the prices with loyalty cards. Except, apparently, when it comes to Pepsi. For Tom.
Barnes & Noble Will Happily Price-Match Website…When You Return Something Without A Receipt
By 1.25.13
Marjorie has discovered a really irritating flaw in Barnes & Noble’s online price-matching procedures. As we discussed shortly after Christmas, you can place orders on the chain’s website for in-store pickup, but prices differ on many items between retail locations and the website. Unlike many other stores, orders placed online but picked up in person go for the in-store price, not the online one. This annoys a lot of customers, and may hurt the company’s real-life retail operations. Marjorie discovered an interesting flip side to this, though: she had to buy a gift in the store, even though the online purchase price was $22 lower. When she went back to the store to return it, after her son had lost the receipt, the only price they would give her was the lowest one they had charged for the same book online. [More]
