But lets say Best buy is price matching anyone who buys a big screen TV. They normally charge $700 and if you find it for less they will sell you the TV plus give you 10% of the difference. So if you buy it from Best Buy and find a store that has it for $600, Best Buy will give you $110 back.
However your friend Steve who runs ‘crazy Steve’s electronics’ in his basement decides to have a one day sale he doesn’t advertise where Big screen TVs are being sold for $200.
So you go into best buy and try to use the $200 price as a price match, hoping to get $550 back.
I’m sure someone has thought of this before. I wonder what prison he is in. I should write to him.
When I was a retail salesman and manager (at Sears, before they had declined as much as they have now), I could have gotten away with not matching such a price unless the customer brought in a printed advertisement. And I don’t mean a flyer–I mean something out of the local paper, or professionally printed and bound flyer. I most certainly would not have sold a TV for under the store’s cost, as that obviously would get me nothing. (And this would be have been equally true when I was a sales drone, as my store would not pay commission on sales that included such a huge unauthorized discount).
All the price match guarantees I’ve ever seen have a boatload of fine print - offer good only against a local store, printed advertisement required, in-stock item, exact same model, no warehouse clubs, etc. I think they’re on to your scheme.
And frankly if I ran a Best Buy and someone tried to pull that I’d be tempted to send a truck over to Crazy Steve’s and buy out his entire stock since he’s selling them way below cost.
They simply refuse to honor the deal if they don’t want to. I’ve seen it happen. They say “go buy it there”. And what am I going to do? Sue over $10 bucks? Nope. Yes, the advertising laws allow it if they don’t have the fine print, but I’ve got to appear in front of these judges all the time.
Often times a big box store will have products with unique model numbers (made just for them), so that it’s impossible to match the price - no one else carries the exact same model (even if the only difference is the number).
Always did love the local mattress schmuck and his “We’ll beat anyone’s advertised price or your mattress is free.” Well, duh asshole, of course you’ll match the price instead of giving away the product for free. I’m sure nobody’s ever received a mattress as a result of his slogan.
Another common fine print is that they limit how much of a dollar value discount that they can give. However, if you have a good salesman and a tired, busy, or desperate manager, they can over ride one or more fine print rules. That is how I got a $515 washer for $387 with free delivery.
A few years back when I was shopping/haggling for a home theater system I asked the salesman of a place with a “we will not be undersold” policy what they would do if I bounced back and forth between them and one of their competitors with the same policy, getting a bigger discount each time. He said, “We just wouldn’t sell it to you, we may not even let you in the store.” His manager ended up giving me a big discount just because I asked for one.
I used to work at Circuit City and we offered the 110% match.
Usually:
-customer would try to match a really good deal from somewhere like Staples, but EVERY TIME I’d call Staples and they would be out of stock. No deal.
-customer would want to price match a computer or something from Best Buy - I knew it was the same model but different product numbers. No deal. (and I think Best Buy was the one with the most unique product numbers but no proof)
I am pretty sure I almost never saw the price match work. Honestly most big-ticket items at a store like that are not marked up much, all the real money is made on accessories. So getting below cost was not hard if something had a discount applied. And most times a customer would even try is because they went to wherever else first and the store was out of stock, so automatic no.
Best Buy pretty much covers themselves with their disclaimer:
If you find a lower advertised price on the same available brand and model prior to your purchase or during the exchange and return period (30 days), we will match that price. Simply bring in the ad of the local retail competitor or Best Buy, while the lower price is in effect and receive your price match. The guarantee does not apply to our competitor’s website pricing and the guarantee
does notapply to our competitor’s:
-Offers that include financing, bundling of items, free items, pricing errors and mail-in offers.
-Items that are limited-quantity, out of stock, open-box, clearance, Outlet Center, refurbished/used items and items for sale Thanksgiving dat through the Saturday after Thanksgiving.
They will match the price on the same model - but, here’s the tricky part. No other store sells exactly the same model. Where Sears sells model SN2009. Best Buy sells model SN2009b. Either they make a deal with the manufacturer to create a slight model variation or they stick a new label on the box in the Best Buy Store.
edit-dangit, duckster got it in while I was typing
A couple of years ago in an electronics store in Norway (Elkjøp), I bought a phone for half the price. There was another store (that was too far away for me to go to) that had a sale on it. The salesman just went to their website to confirm it, and then he matched the price.
Have any real life examples of this? I’ve shopped BBY for years and have always found their model numbers to be the standard vendor numbers (I can find pretty much anything Sony at BBY on the Sony website with matching numbers).
