* Target says holiday online price matching now year-round
* Policy includes only certain online retailers
Jan 8 (Reuters) – Target Corp said on Tuesday it
will match on a year-round basis the prices found on the
websites of key rivals Amazon.com Inc, Best Buy Co Inc
, Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Toys R Us, its latest
tactic to hold onto shoppers focused on price.
The move extends an online price-matching program that
Target introduced over the holiday season and which was supposed
to last only from Nov. 1 to Dec. 16. It also comes after Target
last week reported flat sales growth in December at stores open
at least a year.
In November Chief Executive Gregg Steinhafel said the
retailer was not seeing a lot of price-match activity in its
stores.
While shopping online has grown rapidly in recent years, it
still represents a small fraction of overall shopping in the
United States. Target’s policy of matching online prices differs
from policies at several chains, which match only printed
advertised prices for items sold at stores.
Target said that throughout the year it will match the price
when a customer buys an eligible item at one of its stores and
finds the same item at a lower price in the following week’s
Target circular or in a local competitor’s printed ad. It will
also match the price if the customer finds the same item at a
lower price within a week on Target’s website or the websites of
Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy and Toys R Us.
Amazon says it offers competitive prices and does not offer
price matching when an item’s price drops after a customer buys
it, with the exception of televisions. Walmart matches the
prices of print ads from competitors. Walmart also says it
checks the prices of 30,000 items at competing chains each week
to make sure it has the lowest prices.
Best Buy matches the price from a local competitor’s store,
a local Best Buy store or its own web site. Toys R Us matches
in-store prices and certain online prices.
