Skip to footer

Wal-Mart will offer Black Friday price-matching. Who else?

Wal-Mart is one of many retailers to offer some form of price-matching during  Black Friday sales. Here's a guide to understanding price matching, including some breakdowns of the Black Friday price matching policies for Wal-Mart, Target, and other retailers.

|
Brandon Wade/Invision for Walmart/AP/File
A Christmas display at a Walmart store. Walmart and other retailers will offer price-matching for Black Friday, but policies vary from store to store.

Black Friday is right around the corner, and hordes of savvy shoppers are going to descend on malls near you to scoop up the best deals immediately. If you want another way to get the best Black Friday offers, you should look into price matching policies. Here's a guide to understanding price matching, including some breakdowns of the Black Friday price matching policies for specific retailers.

How to Get Black Friday Price Matching

Step 1: Bring Proof of Lower Prices

This is kind of a no-brainer, but you need to have proof of a lower price at a competitor if you want the store to give you price matched discounts. Bring a sales flyer with you that has the price you want the retailer to match, or have the item's sale page on a competitor's website loaded up on your smartphone to show the cashier. Walmart doesn't require a copy of the competitor's ad to have a price match in some cases, but most retailers do. You might get hassled if you show up with a photocopy of the flyer, or a screenshot of the price on your phone (rather than a live web page), since those could potentially be doctored in some way.

Do note that retailers have different policies about price matching in general (and price matching on Black Friday in particular), so not all price matches will be possible. We'll dish about that a little more in step four.

Step 2: Know What Items Typically Qualify

Some retailers offer price matching, but only for select items. In 2012, for example, we reported that J&R would honor price matching, but not on CDs or DVDs. Similarly, Fry's Electronics excluded select items from their price matching program.

In addition, some retailers say they will price match any "local" retailer, but local can be a somewhat nebulous term that can vary from store to store. Ask the manager at the location where you shop what "local" means if you need additional clarification.

Step 3: Don't Forget About Price Adjustments

Whether you are shopping in-store or online, you should keep your eyes peeled for retailers who offer price adjustments. Price adjustments mean that if you can find the same item at the same store for less money at a later date, the store will offer you cash or store credit for the difference. So if you buy that TV for $399, but the store later drops the price to $350, you could stand to get cash back.

Not all retailers offer this perk, and of those that do, not all of them offer it during Black Friday. It's worth asking your cashier what the store's policy is for price adjustments, and for what time period the adjustment offer is valid. The only thing better than getting price matching on Black Friday is getting a sweet price adjustment a week later.

Step 4: Double-Check the Store's Black Friday Price Matching Policy

Some retail stores may have different policies during the ultra-competitive Black Friday sales rush, so it's important to understand the terms of each retailer. For example, Walmart has made headlines on past Black Fridays by offering "guaranteed doorbusters." If an item sold out, shoppers received Walmart vouchers that allowed them to buy the exact same item when it came back into stock, and at the same low Black Friday price.

Check out the guide below to learn more about some of the biggest retailers and their policies on price matching for Black Friday. We've included info about whether they honor price matching on Black Friday, as well as info about their general policies for online price matching.

Price Matching Store Policies

Best Buy

Price Matching for Black Friday: No
Match Online Prices: Yes, for select retailers (Amazon.com, Bhphotovideo.com, Crutchfield.com, Dell.com, HP.com, Newegg.com, and TigerDirect.com)
Full Terms Here

Target

Price Matching for Black Friday: No, but try asking the manager nicely
Match Online Prices: Yes, for select competitors (Amazon.com, Walmart.com, BestBuy.com, ToysRUs.com or BabiesRUs.com) and Target.com
Full Terms Here

Walmart

Price Matching for Black Friday: Yes
Match Online Prices: Unclear (WSJ claims yes, but it remains unconfirmed from Walmart itself)
Full Terms Here

Newegg

Price Matching for Black Friday: Yes, on select items bearing the Iron Egg Price Guarantee badge
Match Online Prices: Yes, but not for auction sites
Full Terms Here

Toys "R" Us

Price Matching for Black Friday: No
Match Online Prices: Yes, for some Toysrus.com and Babiesrus.com items
Full Terms Here

Amazon

Price Matching for Black Friday: No
Match Online Prices: Yes, for select televisions and cell phones
Full Terms Here

Sears

Price Matching for Black Friday: No
Match Online Prices: Yes, for select competitors
Full Terms Here

Bed, Bath & Beyond

Price Matching for Black Friday: Yes (Terms do not indicate Black Friday is exempt)
Match Online Prices: Yes, some conditions apply
Full Terms Here

Readers, do you have any secret tips for getting lower Black Friday prices? Just wanna brag about the huge deals you got last year? 

Tucker Cummings is a contributing writer for Dealnews.com, where this article first appeared. 

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Wal-Mart will offer Black Friday price-matching. Who else?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Saving-Money/2014/1113/Wal-Mart-will-offer-Black-Friday-price-matching.-Who-else
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe