Best Buy reportedly plans to match the price of Amazon and other internet retailers during the holiday shopping season, and offer free home delivery when stores are out of stock. Wal-Mart has already stopped selling Amazon’s Kindle e-reader and rolled out plans for a same-day delivery service for online shoppers in some big metropolitan markets.
The Wall Street Journal says Best Buy is attempting to fight back against “showrooming”: where consumers walk into stores and then shop online for a cheaper price. The Journal says “Best Buy is still working out the details of its internet price matching program, which might exclude some items.” Toys ‘R Us has been taking a different strategy: expanding its large range of exclusive products and adding more pop-up stores for the holidays.
Consumers allow themselves a positive outlook
Consumer confidence has gone up in recent weeks, but shoppers appear to be in no mood to splurge. Retailers are cautiously optimistic about the coming holiday shopping season. “Most shoppers feel that the worst is over,” says Ellen Davis of the National Retail Federation “They made it through the recession. Many of them spent several years paying down debt or putting money into savings.” But there are plenty of headwinds this fall. Everything from political attack ads to news about the fiscal cliff to gas prices that still can’t seem to stabilize are giving some consumers reason for caution.”
