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> Others also reported that they successfully price matched gear at retailers such as Best Buy and Walmart. Wow, this is incredible if true. Not just as a sign
by danso 7y ago
> Others also reported that they successfully price matched gear at retailers such as Best Buy and Walmart.
Wow, this is incredible if true. Not just as a sign of how much these traditional retailers will stick to their promises, but also how the ostensible safeguards of brick-and-mortar/human-touch can still be subverted by algorithmic error. I've never worked at retail but if I saw such a drastic reduction I'd call my manager.
- mrep 7y agoIsn't that a good thing? A "price match" with a bunch of exclusions isn't really a price match.
- danso 7y agoBut price matching is predicated on realistic economic competition, not we'll-match-it-no-matter-what-based-on-principle. There are already exceptions based on only dealing with "major online retailers" – i.e. retailers that operate on making stable revenue/profit from selling things – as well as disqualifying certain kind of discounts, like clearances and Black Friday prices. And in any case, Best Buy's qualifying requirements [0] make an exception for "pricing errors". [0] https://www.bestbuy.com/site/customer-service/price-match-guarantee/pcmcat290300050002.c?id=pcmcat290300050002 https://www.bestbuy.com/site/customer-service/price-match-gu...
- deanstag 7y agoAny Nathan For You fans here?
- FireBeyond 7y agoOne of the things they "fixed" was requiring it to be sold by Amazon or Fulfilled By Amazon. A few years ago there was a little racket in creating an Amazon seller account, "selling" things at stupid discounts (which you neither had nor intended to fulfill), go into Best Buy and say "Look, half that price on Amazon, match it!".
- qiqitori 7y agoHuh, it's crazy that they do this at all. How do they check this kind of thing? Do they ask the buyer to display the Amazon page on their smartphone if it's just a small discount? Or do they always check on their own devices? (Amazon reportedly sometimes displays different prices for different accounts.) In my experience, if you need a retail clerk to do something for you and the first person turns you down, you can often just go to a different clerk (if possible in a different shop) and try your luck again. (I've done this 1) to get my phone company to change my phone number despite not quite fulfilling the requirements 2) to get an MP3 file of a store's theme song.) Now I believe trying to fake an Amazon page in order to get a price-matching discount is most likely fraud, but it still seems like some people who aren't fraudsters in general (e.g. teenagers) would be trying this kind of thing.
- ovao 7y agoMy price-matching experience is — consistently — that a manager is called over to okay a displayed competitor's price on my phone, and the manager simply gives the okay without questioning or validating. I've never had a competitor's price cross-checked. Based on this, I think I could cheat at least slightly if I were immoral.
- londons_explore 7y agoI wonder why so many people use price matching? Why not buy it direct from the cheaper place?
- johnnycab 7y agoThere might be some added benefits or preferences e.g. extended warranty, insurance, physical location, loyalty towards a brand or accrued in kind via a scheme or membership etc.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago> One of the things they "fixed" was requiring it to be sold by Amazon or Fulfilled By Amazon. As of the last time I heard their policy (within a couple of years, from floor/cash register staff), Fulfilled By Amazon doesn't cut it -- they will price match only if Amazon is the vendor.
- s0rce 7y agoBut an online store that makes a pricing error and then potentially reverts it without shipping the goods shouldn't necessarily be priced matched by other retailers. 99.3% discount isn't reasonable...
- londons_explore 7y agoSome businesses are built around that. 99percentoffsale.com
- Mtinie 7y agoAutomation FTW!
- zeta0134 7y agoWhen I was working at Best Buy at least, the register wouldn't let you price match if it fell below a certain margin. If that's still the policy, that means that managers were likely involved, and very likely approving the price match. I guess that's going to inspire some serious good will in those customers, but geeze, that's a $12,000 loss in the day's profit. Is it worth it?
- sqldba 7y agoIt's not those customers they care about. It's the additional million people who will see the news and scour the deals next year hoping for the same.
- sharkweek 7y agoI'm not sure how far and wide the show Nathan For You reaches, but there's a fantastic episode where he proposes a local electronics store mark TVs down to $1 in order to buy up new inventory from Best Buy for his own store using their price match policy. Rather than trying to explain it poorly, I highly recommend everyone watch this clip from the show: http://www.cc.com/video-clips/i6q9t5/nathan-for-you-the-price-match-plan http://www.cc.com/video-clips/i6q9t5/nathan-for-you-the-pric...
- conductr 7y agoNever tried it but I’ve considered just editing the DOM to make Amazon page show the price I want.
- astura 7y agoWhen I've price matched before the associate pulled up the website on her computer to prevent this.
- felipemnoa 7y agoAt a minimum I expect that they would double check the price on their own browsers so I don't think your approach would work.
- Cd00d 7y agoNever seen the show before, but enjoyed the clip - thank you. Very curious how it turned out.
- edanm 7y agoDespite being not at all the kind of show I normally watch, I found this to be one of the greatest shows I've ever seen. It's funny, and brilliant in its observations of human nature. Highly, highly recommended.