Why Best Buy Should Show Amazon Prices at Its Stores

The practice of competitive pricing is almost as old as the retail industry. “We’ll match any price, from any of our competitors, and if we can’t, we’ll pay you $100.” That kind of message has been a proven method for bricks-and-mortar stores to steal customers from one another. However, the process has become an instant one. Consumers can walk through Best Buy stores and buy the things they want at Amazon using their smartphones — getting the lowest price instantly. And often they get it with free shipping from Amazon.

Best Buy could create a nearly fool-proof method of getting shoppers to buy what they want before leaving its locations. It would need to place computers throughout its stores with Web pages open to the Amazon pages that match the Best Buy merchandise. The comparisons would immediately show “their price versus our price” against Amazon. The risk is that the Amazon price would be lower. Best Buy’s option would be to meet that price, or even offer its merchandise for a price that is lower. Best Buy might have to put dozens of PCs throughout its aisles to make the system work. But it would give itself an excellent chance to make a sale on the spot, before customers could go to their Amazon accounts and fill their online shopping carts with items they have shopped from Best Buy’s inventory of smartphones, TVs, DVD players, sound systems, GPS devices, tablets and PCs.

Best Buy’s stock has moved from a 52-week low of $11.20 to a recent 52-week high above $44. It has posted one of the top performances of any stock in any category this year. Now, it has to prove the rise is justified with a powerful performance during the most important shopping period of the year. That means it has to keep all the customers who shop at its stores, and perhaps steal some who might have shopped at Amazon.