HomeDepot Price match policy discrepancy

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I needed a 6 pack of these Lithium CR123a batteries and wanted to buy the Duracell brand not some cheap generics. Amazon had them for $15 on sale. Homedepot has the same product listed for $25. Per HD in-store price match policy:

How the Low Price Guarantee works for in-store pre-purchases: If you find a current lower price on an identical, in-stock item from any other retailer, we will match the price. Just bring the ad, printout or photo with you to the register for validation. (This may involve the associate contacting the competitor).

I go to the store and the employees start telling me they will only price match local hardware stores. I pull up the price match policy from their website, and they say they will bring a manager. "Manager" comes and says the same thing, I show her the policy and she says she will bring the real manager. I'm standing around for about 5 minutes until the original sales associate comes and struggling to do math on the price difference asks me if $10 off will be ok. I said fine. The rep was nice about it but told him if I knew I was going to have to beg for a price match per their own policy, I would've just ordered online.

So I decided to call up their corporate hotline. I wasn't sure if it was just this store that was profiling me or giving me a hard time. Normally, HomeDepot is very generous about price matching or even giving you a discount if something doesn't work out as expected.

Their corporate hotline basically contradicts their website, and says the same thing: they will only price match local hardware stores for in-store purchases. HOWEVER, I could order online for in-store pickup from homedepot.com and get the amazon price match.

If we had Menards around here, I think they would change their tune. Just an FYI.
 
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How the Low Price Guarantee works for in-store pre-purchases: If you find a current lower price on an identical, in-stock item from any other retailer, we will match the price. Just bring the ad, printout or photo with you to the register for validation. (This may involve the associate contacting the competitor).

Their corporate hotline basically contradicts their website, and says the same thing: they will only price match local hardware stores for in-store purchases. HOWEVER, I could order online for in-store pickup from homedepot.com and get the amazon price match.

The Home Depot price match policy does not honor membership club prices including Costco, Sam's Club, BJ's Wholesale, etc. Amazon also counts since they require a $139 Prime membership for free shipping unless your order exceeds $25. Look closely at the third bullet from the bottom of the HD website's Price Matching policy exclusions.

1679418713661.png
 
The Home Depot price match policy does not honor membership club prices including Costco, Sam's Club, BJ's Wholesale, etc. Amazon also counts since they require a $139 Prime membership for free shipping unless your order exceeds $25. Look closely at the third bullet from the bottom of the HD website's Price Matching policy exclusions.

View attachment 146119
The amazon price is not a "club" price or a "membership-based retail wholesaler." Its a price available to anyone. Prime is a separate, prepaid shipping service. Besides their policy distinguishes between purchases AT HOMEDEPOT in store, or online - not the physical presence of the retailer being price matched. Never had any problems price matching Amazon, Lowes, Best buy, normal retailers not some scummy shopify site.
 
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I get pissed off when the person doing the price match thing is front of me at the register. So glad retailers are reigning this in. If you find a lower price somewhere else-just buy it there!.....
Reigning in on what, not following their own policy? Go to self check out if you're impatient. I was buying other things at HD, otherwise I wouldn't waste my gas.
 
HD should update their policy to make it clear it is any other retail merchant one might walk into to make the same purchase. An online only competitor isn't an equivalent.
 
Pretty standard that physical stores don't match internet "store" prices.
Target and Bestbuy price match online competitors when in store, especially Amazon. These are the only two other stores I know that price match.
 
I needed a 6 pack of these Lithium CR123a batteries and wanted to buy the Duracell brand not some cheap generics. Amazon had them for $15 on sale. Homedepot has the same product listed for $25. Per HD in-store price match policy:

How the Low Price Guarantee works for in-store pre-purchases: If you find a current lower price on an identical, in-stock item from any other retailer, we will match the price. Just bring the ad, printout or photo with you to the register for validation. (This may involve the associate contacting the competitor).

I go to the store and the employees start telling me they will only price match local hardware stores. I pull up the price match policy from their website, and they say they will bring a manager. "Manager" comes and says the same thing, I show her the policy and she says she will bring the real manager. I'm standing around for about 5 minutes until the original sales associate comes and struggling to do math on the price difference asks me if $10 off will be ok. I said fine. The rep was nice about it but told him if I knew I was going to have to beg for a price match per their own policy, I would've just ordered online.

I was pissed off about this so I decided to call up their corporate hotline. I wasn't sure if it was just this store that was profiling me or giving me a hard time. Normally, HomeDepot is very generous about price matching or even giving you a discount if something doesn't work out as expected.

Their corporate hotline basically contradicts their website, and says the same thing: they will only price match local hardware stores for in-store purchases. HOWEVER, I could order online for in-store pickup from homedepot.com and get the amazon price match.

If we had Menards around here, I think they would change their tune. Just an FYI.
What's not included per your link

"Items sold via a third-party or discount site - meaning any products that are not sold directly by a competing retailer"

Do you think Amazon qualifies as a third-party? I wonder myself.
 
HD should update their policy to make it clear it is any other retail merchant one might walk into to make the same purchase. An online only competitor isn't an equivalent.
What bothers me is that around here it would be easier just to steal the product than to get a billion dollar corporation to honor its pricing policy. And I wouldn't get looked at by the employees as a thief either. If the policy says they won't price match, fine I'll comply. But they're too busy to update their website so I don't have to waste my time.
 
What's not included per your link

"Items sold via a third-party or discount site - meaning any products that are not sold directly by a competing retailer"

Do you think Amazon qualifies as a third-party?
How is amazon a third party? This is the item, shipped and sold by amazon. Amazon is the retailer. Amazon is a directly competing retailer.
 
I never get involved with that drama. I go to the store with the best price if that is what I am after. These days I usually just pay up and a few pennies saved doesn't thrill me much.
Some people get excited over the chase....so I get it.
 
The amazon price is not a "club" price or a "membership-based retail wholesaler." Its a price available to anyone. Prime is a separate, prepaid shipping service. Besides their policy distinguishes between purchases AT HOMEDEPOT in store, or online - not the physical presence of the retailer being price matched. Never had any problems price matching Amazon, Lowes, Best buy, normal retailers not some scummy shopify site.

I don't know about now, but there have been some prices on Amazon that aren't just Prime shipping enabled, but the prices they have are only available to Prime members.

However, their price matching really depends on who you talk to. At the same store I've had someone not give a second thought to price matching Amazon, while another time I was flatly told no. Wasn't worth the hassle so I gave up.

Walmart no longer does price matching. But Target still does and it can get interesting because of the way they do their own pricing, which is based on individual regions/stores. I've had Target price match their own price (including their own house brand) because either the online price (for local pickup) was cheaper than the shelf price, or their website defaulted to a different location where the online price was much cheaper. Heck - I've been using Target's guest Wi-Fi locally, and it would think I was in Southern California or even Kansas and give me a better price.
 

Really depends. Often you have to fiddle around to find something that's sold directly by Amazon or where it's "Fulfilled by Amazon" where they warehouse the item and handle everything on behalf of the actual seller.
 
Really depends. Often you have to fiddle around to find something that's sold directly by Amazon or where it's "Fulfilled by Amazon" where they warehouse the item and handle everything on behalf of the actual seller.
As long as it says:
1679422302395.png
its sold by Amazon directly. This is the same product on homedepot. They will ship for free, no minimum. So prime shouldn't even be a factor here. Never had an issue at Target.
 
As long as it says: View attachment 146124its sold by Amazon directly. This is the same product on homedepot. They will ship for free, no minimum. So prime shouldn't even be a factor here. Never had an issue at Target.

Often I've seen the default option (usually because it was the cheapest) was a third party seller where Amazon shipped it from one of their warehouses. If I wanted to get the "Sold by Amazon" price to use for price matching, I would need to fiddle around with it until that showed up at the top.

I've ordered that way, and it can get interesting. Once I was just buying something that was originally sold by a particular company (let's just call the company "Disney") and it wasn't used but still had half of a Disney Store retail tag attached along with a secondary label (from the seller) on that tag. I've also gotten better prices through a third party seller and found they had attached some sort of label to it. I've never seen any Amazon specific tag on any item other than Amazon branded (Kindle, AmazonBasics) items.
 
Amazon does allow third-party sellers. It could just be a blanket policy so that store people don't have to make that determination themselves. TBH I'm surprised you were able to get a price match with HD since most of there stuff they sell is unique.
 
1679423345947.png

So basically they conceded their website is misleading. If you're planning to exercise their pricematch policy for somewhere like Amazon, order online for in store pickup. Had I known that, I would've done that.
 
The policy is clearly for online order and pickup only. If you go into the store cold as you did, you get the other policy where they only match local stores.

Dude your screen name says it all...
And your avatar is a liar.
 
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