Walmart’s Strategy to Boost Ecommerce Spending

Walmart’s low price guarantee, wherein the company will match a lower advertised competitor’s price, has one interesting exception—it’s own website.

Such was the lesson an Atlanta shopper recently learned, reports the Atlanta Journal Constitution, when attempting to purchase Legos for his son, first online and then in-store.  What the shopper found was that the in-store price was about 35 percent higher than the online price.

Walmart would not match their own online price, though the customer did have the option to get the online price in store—by ordering the Legos on his phone and selecting the “pick-up in store” option.

“My son and I stood there and watched as a different employee came a few minutes later, picked the item up off the shelf, and brought it back to the holding spot for pickup. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the confirmation that it was available for pickup until the next day! So I had to go back the next day to pick it up!!”

The difference comes as Walmart’s online and in-store pricing become unlinked from each other, as Walmart tries to take on lower priced online competitor’s like Amazon. Though Amazon still outpaces Walmart in sales, Walmart’s online growth is faster than Amazon’s.

Additionally, Walmart.com is reportedly using dynamic demand pricing, which allows prices online to go up, and down, in relation to employee demand.

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