Retailers get tricky to make comparing prices tough
Same products sell with different names, prices
When Jennifer Wilson found a chandelier she really wanted at Potterybarn.com, she asked her deal-savvy husband, Brad, to see if he could find her a better price. It took about 10 minutes.
Pottery Barn called it “our Celeste chandelier.” But Brad, who is the founder of Bradsdeals.com, found an identical one called the “6 Light Curved Iron and Crystal Chandelier” at Overstock.com for $183 with shipping, vs. the then-$440 price tag at Pottery Barn. This is just the kind of price checking that drives retailers crazy. Online shoppers such as the Wilsons do it, as do consumers using their smartphones in stores. Stores lament that consumers use them as showrooms to see products in person before buying them at less expensive, often Web-only retailers.
Brick-and-mortar retailers are doing everything they can to combat what they call “showrooming” and to make apples-toapples price comparisons difficult. Target confirmed that it sent its suppliers a letter in January asking them to come up with special versions of products that only the discounter could sell. It’s part of an effort to “build our vendors’ brands and businesses and help Target deliver the best possible quality and prices” for shoppers, says spokeswoman Molly Snyder.
From TVS and appliances to jewelry and clothing, things that appear almost identical can have very different prices — and features. Designer brands will make one version of a sweater for department stores and another for off-price retailers such as T.J. Maxx. Appliance makers will let big store chains have their own model names and numbers for almost identical products.
The practice became common with TVS more than five years ago, when higher-end manufacturers found they were losing business to second- and third-tier brands at discounters, says Consumer Reports senior electronics editor Jim Willcox. They started making lower-priced models that were unique to the discounters and complicating consumers’ efforts to compare prices. Manufacturers such as Samsung and Sony are trying to help brick-andmortar retailers more by moving to pricing policies that would prohibit deviations from their suggested prices and withhold products from any retailers that don’t comply, Willcox says.
Before jumping at that low-priced TV, Willcox says to make sure it won’t shortchange you in areas that might be important, such as having Wi-fi or a full Web browser. Some also might have fewer inputs for digital connections, which could limit the ability to hook up multiple DVD players, game consoles and other devices.
Many consumers don’t think it’s worth it to do price comparisons. But Wilson’s success should send us all to our search engines. Price-comparison apps such as Red Laser and Price Check are useful for seeing what prices are out there, but they aren’t as helpful when model numbers are different.
A Kitchenaid mixer at Macys.com had a model number that didn’t show up anywhere other than the Macy’s site in Google Shopping. But by adding an “H” at the end of the number, Wilson found many lower prices. The mixer, which was $349 with free shipping at Macy’s on Monday, was $113 including shipping at Kohl’s last month. It’s now on sale at Macy’s for $229 through today. Other examples:
-A silver butterfly necklace with multicolored stones was on three sites, with prices ranging from $29 at Jewelry.com to $143 at Zales.
-A gray ottoman was at Overstock.com for $124 with shipping. Wilson found it listed at the furniture and rug company Safavieh for $290 with shipping. The model number had an extra zero.
-A $900 Samsung washing machine listed as “only at Lowe’s” is also at Best Buy and other retailers with a slightly different model number and two more wash cycles, says Wilson. But it’s still just $900.
The lowest may not always be the best price if the customer service or repair options are lacking. If something goes wrong with a TV, there’s a “comfort level in bringing it down the street” to a store, rather than shipping it back to an online retailer that may not pay for return shipping, Willcox says.
While roadblocks to price comparisons hurt consumers, Wilson says “coming up with ways to obscure that one product is the same as the next is one of the smart tactical things they can do,” he says. “I expect a lot more of it.”