Wal-Mart’s price-matching policy lost the company a lot of money when customers brought in Amazon third-party sellers’ prices of PS4s.
Update: Wal-Mart has confirmed to The Escapist that the company has amended its price-matching policy to state it will no longer match the prices of third-party vendors. The full details of the policy are available to view here.
Original story:Wal-Mart stores sold PS4s for $90 when customers took advantage of Wal-Mart’s price-matching policy. The company will match the price of select online retailers, such as Amazon, on an identical product.
However, Wal-Mart stores were matching the price of PS4s, originally $400, set by third-party sellers in the Amazon marketplace. Any Amazon member with a registered selling account can list items for sale online. Wal-Mart’s policy currently requires customers to present just a screen capture of the page to a cashier.
Customers have posted pictures of receipts to show Wal-Mart accepted the fake Amazon listings, such as Twitter user Taahaa8, who wrote, “LMAO Amazon and Walmart jig just got ps4 for $97.”
Employees did not check the legitimacy of the listings they were matching.
Last weekend, a Sears glitch caused Wii U and 3DS bundles to be listed for $60 each. Sears quickly corrected the problem, but before it was fixed, Sears customers got physical stores to match the $60 price found online. Others got Toys R Us, Best Buy, and Wal-Mart stores to match the false price.
We have contacted Amazon and Wal-Mart for comment.
Wal-Mart may need to amend its price-matching policy to reexamine what “for sale on Amazon.com” includes.
Source: CNBC
Published: Nov 20, 2014 03:38 pm