US-based retailer Target is now matching its store prices with the online prices of large-scale retailers such as Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy. While the pricing policy was originally rolled out as a holiday promotion, it will now remain in place all year round.
Pricing experts are debating hard whether it is wise to have the same prices on the Internet as in physical stores with pure-play online retailers having much lower set-up and maintenance costs than traditional retailing. However, ‘showrooming‘ – where shoppers go into a store to carry out product research and then buy the product online from a rival at a lower price – is a growing phenomenon as smartphones and tablet ownership rises. For this reason, it makes sense for multichannel retailers to offer the same price in-store as online to entice ‘showroomers’ away from the competition to buy their goods.
Giving consumers the option of “click and collect” will also get Internet shoppers into your shop. If you feel that such a pricing plan is not for you, another option is to match the prices of your rivals on a “apples to apples” basis i.e. if a lower price is found elsewhere, you can offer to match that price only if the customer orders the product from you. With so many retail businesses collapsing into administration already this year, the need for multichannel retailers to have the same in-store prices as online has never been greater. Competitor price monitoring technology helps retailers to benchmark their pricing against the competition with ease.
© 2013 Profitero
About Profitero
Pricing intelligence company Profitero provides retailers with actionable price intelligence data, monitoring over 50 million products across 4,000 eCommerce retailers every day, observing pricing, promotions and stock availability. We work with the world’s leading retailers, enabling them to acquire new customers and grow profit margins by monitoring and responding to changes in competitor pricing and promotional activity as they happen. For more information on Profitero price intelligence and competitor monitoring, visit www.profitero.com or email sales@profitero.com
