USA Today reports that Target is ending its policy of price-matching Walmart and Amazon.
The current policy: “”We’ll match the price if you buy a qualifying item at Target and then find the identical item for less at Target.com, Amazon, Walmart or with a Target Circle deal (deals that apply automatically upon identifying yourself as a Target Circle member). Price matches may be requested at time of purchase or within 14 days after purchase.”
Why the change: “We’ve found our guests overwhelmingly price match Target and not other retailers, which reflects the great value and trust in pricing consumers see across our assortment and deals. Starting July 28, we’ll update our Price Match Guarantee policy to reflect this, allowing consumers to continue to shop with confidence at Target stores and Target.com.”
In other words, USA Today writes, “Target will only match its own in-store and online prices at Target.com, if the price drops within 14 days.”
The story notes that neither Walmart nor Amazon price-match each other.
KC’s View:
Here’s my first question: If I were a Target customer, and I consistently price-checked it against Amazon and Walmart and found out that those two companies had better prices, wouldn’t I eventually just stop going to Target? Wouldn’t I see Target as a waste of my time, that the only way I would get a competitive price there would be if I forced Target to give it to me?
If that were the case, it would make sense that Target would eliminate price-matching. Rather than making it competitive, the policy would highlight the degree to which it was a price-laggard.
While this shift in policy does bring Target in line with its main competition, Neil Saunders, a retail analyst at GlobalData, makes the point that the move does reflect “a deterioration in customer service.”
Target’s brand (and, over the past year, its stock price) has deteriorated a fair amount from its halcyon cheap chic days. Walmart and Amazon seem to have consigned it to also-ran status. Its stores seem indistinct, its value proposition murky, it is softening any kind of price advantage that it might have, and I can’t imagine it is seen as being more convenient than either Amazon or Walmart. And, on social issues where it once led, Target has backed off.
In the end, though matching is less important than exceeding. And that’s where Target seems to be falling short.
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