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posted by martyb on Friday November 17 2017, @12:13AM   Printer-friendly
from the BrickAndMortar++ dept.

Walmart is taking a bit of an nontraditional approach to boost sales ahead of Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping events by raising prices for products sold online and discounting those same items in physical retail stores. According to The Wall Street Journal, the big-box store has quietly raised prices for household and food items such as toothbrushes, macaroni and cheese, and dog food on its website while the prices in stores remained the same. If there are price discrepancies between online and in-store purchases, Walmart will now highlight this on the product's web listing to encourage customers to buy them from their local stores.

It's all part of an effort to increase foot traffic as Walmart continues to compete with Amazon just about everywhere else.

[...] With the new pricing strategy, a twin-pack of Betty Crocker Hamburger Helper costs $3.30 on Walmart.com, but goes as low as $2.50 if purchased at a store in Illinois. The aim is to also help reduce processing costs and increase online sales margins, since driving customers to stores means less shipping costs for the retailer.

Source: https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/15/16655840/walmart-raising-online-prices-sales-store-traffic-amazon-competition


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by arslan on Friday November 17 2017, @12:41AM (4 children)

    by arslan (3462) on Friday November 17 2017, @12:41AM (#597997)

    I wonder which MBA came up with that idea. If I see a vendor's online prices higher than its stated in-store, first thing I'll check is other online stores..

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 17 2017, @01:28AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 17 2017, @01:28AM (#598009)

    "If we charge more we'll make more money" isn't necessarily a bad idea ... unless your competition is charging less. That being said ...

    ... Amazon's prices on food items is not very competitive (the vast majority are sold via marketplace resellers) and they have relatively few food items that have free shipping (unless you spend a minimum amount). So Walmart's idea isn't all bad as long as they keep it to items Amazon doesn't sell (much) cheaper.

  • (Score: 4, Informative) by bradley13 on Friday November 17 2017, @08:12AM (1 child)

    by bradley13 (3053) on Friday November 17 2017, @08:12AM (#598102) Homepage Journal

    I frequent a forum where several people have ordered from Walmart. Apparently, the mail order was more than a bit chaotic. One moment, they wanted to underprice Amazon, and offered prices they clearly were losing money. The next moment, the prices on the same items would be back to normal. Shipping would be free on X, but not on Y. The boxes come poorly packed, with heavy articles rattling around, damaging lighter articles; while the return process worked, this certainly cost Walmart more money than good packaging would have.

    tl;dr: This may just be an effort to bring order into chaos. Realistically, mail order should cost more than in-store shopping, because you have to pay someone to fetch and pack the individual orders.

    --
    Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 17 2017, @07:16PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 17 2017, @07:16PM (#598329)

      "Realistically, mail order should cost more than in-store shopping, because you have to pay someone to fetch and pack the individual orders."

      you didn't think that one through all the way, did you.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by richtopia on Friday November 17 2017, @04:57PM

    by richtopia (3160) on Friday November 17 2017, @04:57PM (#598244) Homepage Journal

    From the article I read, they are trying to set the online prices to compete with Amazon. For things like kitchen staples, Amazon is typically more expensive than retail anyway, so this price dynamic already existed for the most place.

    Proof: a few weeks ago I had a conference call with my friend, and at the end I said something like "Tony, thank you for your help. Let me buy you a present: Alexa, by me breakfast burritos". Because he was in his living room on speaker phone, Alexa bought something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Sweet-Earth-Burrito-Breakfast-Ounce/dp/B00L5K34LQ/ref=sr_1_2_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1510937767&sr=8-2&keywords=breakfast+burrito [amazon.com]

    That is 12 burritos for $62. The reviews mostly complain about the price. Tony immediately canceled the order.