We caught up with Paul Ziobro from the Wall Street Journal regarding Target’s recent expansion of their online price-match policy to include the likes of Amazon.com and WalMart.com as they head into this competitive holiday shopping season:
"Price-match policies have become widespread among retailers, which previously resisted such offers for fear of losing too much money. Target itself hotly debated matching Amazon.com’s prices internally for nearly nine months before implementing the initial policy in late 2012.
These days, retailers are constantly monitoring rival websites for price changes and will follow price drops to stay competitive. Prices are harder to change quickly in stores, however, so they can be higher for an item that has dropped even on the retailer’s own website.
Even so, customers rarely take up these offers. John Squire, CEO of DynamicAction, a retail analytics firm, said that on average just 2% of shoppers use price match policies. But offering to match prices helps increase odds that a sale takes place.”
