Best Buy to match prices of online retailers

Struggling consumer electronics giant Best Buy is going to give customers the ability to match deals that they see on Amazon.com.

Showrooming, the trend among shoppers to buy products for less online, after comparing prices at Best Buy is growing and the retailer wants to convert them while they were still in the stores.

Price-matching has been available at Best Buy and other retailers for quite some time, but they are confined to offering refunds on the price difference for the same product if it's on sale for less at a bricks-and-mortar rival.

"Best Buy will match the price if you find a lower price on an identical available product at a local retail competitor's store, a local Best Buy retail store or BestBuy.com," reads the retailer's audacious guarantee, which is set to be introduced ahead of the start next month of the holiday shopping season.

Amazon can sell most items for less than Best Buy, as it does not need a network of costly stores, which makes analysts question whether Best Buy would be able to turn a profit on most of these price matches.

According to Amy von Walter, spokeswoman for Best Buy, who spoke to TechNews Daily, out of 600 million visitors that come into its stores 40 per cent made a purchase. She said the company was trying to improve that by tackling a couple of areas.

Best Buy has also spent millions of dollars on additional training for its blue-shirt store reps. She added, the retailer was also giving its frontline employees the power to match prices when it made sense.