Matching Price and Promotion Across Channels

Pfreemanevans | May 01, 2007, 04:08 PM

Another shopping anecdote that further emphasizes the complexities of our current multichannel-retailing environment. A friend was shopping online for a big screen TV. As a good analyst, he had done extensive research online and finally zeroed in on the make and model he wanted. He found a good price and free shipping at one of the major multichannel consumer electronics retailers. But, he didn’t buy it online even though the TV was so big he would have to ship it. Being a nice guy, he thought he would go to the store and let a sales associate get a hefty commission on his purchase. Plus he was going to buy a number of ancillary items. In he went only to find out that the store would not match the free shipping offer he could get online. Given the item, this charge was not small expense and my friend left the store and went home to buy the item from another store. It seems that if consumer electronics retailers are willing to match the price of competitors, as most are, they aught to be able to match their own promotions across channels. Online buyers who shop with the same store across multiple channels agree – 48% say they expect to see the same promotions across channels.