"Best Price Guarantees" That Aren't Worth a Damn

[Deactivated] on 10/01/2016 - 19:59

Flight Centre - "We will beat any airfare quote or you fly free" - Beat by $1
Chemist Warehouse - "We Beat Everyone's Prices" - Beat by 10% off the DIFFERENCE (not the full price)
Menulog - "Best Price Guaranteed" - Difference given by VOUCHER plus additional $5 VOUCHER.

Note in all cases above these companies are usually NOT the cheapest to begin with, but the effort to price beat for such little return is not worth it when you could just shop at the competitor in the first place, meanwhile they can keep advertising such slogans that make them sound like they are the cheapest when they are not.

Any other examples of pathetic price match/price beats that have a good slogan but aren't worth it?

General Discussion

Comments

  • TheOneWhoKnocks on 10/01/2016 - 20:02

    Burnings Warehouse piano plays The lowest prices are just the beginning

    • [Deactivated] on 10/01/2016 - 20:04

      They don't honour the 10% price beat or are a pain to claim it?

      • TheOneWhoKnocks on 10/01/2016 - 20:14

        Neither in my experience. The slogans pretty catchy so thought it was worth a mention.

      • chumlee on 10/01/2016 - 21:27
        +1

        Last time Masters had 10% off I got Bunnings to price beat Masters on a Bosch mitre saw. Didn't have any issues with getting the price beat.

    • [Deactivated] on 10/01/2016 - 21:23

      Hope they're not burning their best price guarantee there…

  • josepet on 10/01/2016 - 20:30
    +1

    My GF went to Flight Center:

    How much would be to fly from GoldCoast to Denpasar? They quote her $800. She tells them that she found one for $650. The rep then says: OK, tell me where you found it and I offer you one for $649.

    lol

    • [Deactivated] on 10/01/2016 - 21:22

      Yep, sounds good to me.

      • SlickMick on 11/01/2016 - 23:06

        My wife reckons they stuff her about a lot longer than that, and she finally tells them to get stuffed. Every time we fly I think we go through this.

  • bion83 on 10/01/2016 - 21:15
    +2

    Hi,

    I use Flight Centre quite often. From my point of view its not just $1 discount but also security in case something goes wring with flight etc. they are better to deal with than all the other www selling cheap flights .

  • TheAviator on 10/01/2016 - 21:49
    +3

    Yes, the reality is most price guarantees are just the bigger players in the market offering to match or only beat their smaller competitors by a fairly insignificant amount. Where possible I prefer to give the smaller company offering the cheaper price my business.

    Only exceptions are if the company offering the price beat would be more convenient, has the product in stock when the other has sold out, or they actually offer a better service than their competitor.

  • fantafox on 10/01/2016 - 23:19
    +1

    Each time i go to the good guys at carseldine and ask if they are prepared to price beat a listed competitor its like pulling teeth. Once i found a price in another brisbane store for the same probuct and asked then to match it. They came back with a price that was $20 more expensive. When i asked why the sales assistant stated that he added the cost of me driving to the store onto the price! I couldn't find that in there t&c. I asked the guy if i buy something from the goodguys would they refund me fuel money from the drive. I think he got the point. Finally got them to match it but it was painful and when i went to pay they tried to jack the price up again. Ive had 3 dealngs of this nature with good guys carseldine and would advise people not to shop there. They promote themselves as being price match friendly but are anything but.

    • welfoj on 10/01/2016 - 23:57
      +2

      Good guys have a price guarantee, so to get them to price beat you have to buy from them at highest price possible and find the cheapest price you can elsewhere within 30 days (i think) and claim 120% of the difference. I Had the same experience with trying to get them to price match. Pointed out that i could use the above procedure to get the item for less than the price i was asking to pay for it, they offered it for a dollar more than competitor price after "speaking with their legal team". Douchebags.

    • PoorStudent on 11/01/2016 - 01:26
      +1

      Bought two items from TGG on separate occasions and found a cheaper price else where so I claimed their 120% price guarantee policy. It's been 2 weeks+ and still waiting for my EFTPOS cards…

  • cypher67 on 11/01/2016 - 00:08
    +2

    I just hate the wording of the flight center one, no one has ever flown for free. Just be honest and say "Prove you can get it cheaper and we will beat it by $1"

  • DeafMutePretender on 11/01/2016 - 05:00

    Economics 101: Price wars don't benefit any player, especially not for the smaller players. As said above, price guarantees (which larger firms are more inclined to be able to afford to do) are just a way for bigger players to retain market share from the smaller competitors.

    I mean yeah, it would be nice if they could beat the competitor's price by 20% or $50 or whatever, but F the consumer.

  • derpdeder on 11/01/2016 - 05:14
    +1

    The worst to me is the Virgin Australia price match. Although it is quite easy to find lower fares than listed on their website, the list of exclusions has been set up so they know they basically never have to offer it.

  • sharkyoz on 11/01/2016 - 07:56

    Trouble with stores like Bunnings is that they sign exclusivity deals with manufacturers and brands, and their the only ones selling that brand. Good luck finding an exact copy to pricematch, if no-one else is selling it.

    • User167511 on 11/01/2016 - 11:30

      Bunnings are even trickier than that. They have products packaged just for them with exclusive part numbers. If you look you will often see the identical product in a competitor's store has a slightly different p/n. They will not the. Match the price. Hardly worth the effort with these folks.

  • badwolfpart2 on 11/01/2016 - 08:01

    The worst for me is Master's. It's basically pulling teeth, and each team tells you something different. The guys in the store say they can't do anything, the customer service team on the phone only beat retailers in very specific conditions and will put you on hold for over 40 minutes so you begin to lose patience, and the guys on Facebook will tell you it's "not in stock" even though it's on the website and "others who have purchased it had their items refunded". When asked why it's still listed as for sale (instead of a wishlist item) they never reply.

  • Tiller76 on 11/01/2016 - 10:10

    It really comes down to the people. I Found a Dyson vacuum online and went to Marion Harvey Norman to physically see it with my wife, with no intention of buying it there. Saleswoman came up and started talking to us. Told her I was looking at it as I found a cheaper price on line. She asked how much and beat that price by $50 without me even asking.

  • Bygum67 on 11/01/2016 - 10:19
    +1

    One of the things to look at when trying to get something at a cheaper price is where is the item coming from like I am a photographer and was looking for a new camera seen the one I wanted from a over sea seller at $1650.0 so printed the add out and took it to my local camera shop and asked if they could match the price , The man went to see is boss came back with a price at $100 dearer so $1750.0 I bought it right away at that price , When you consider the one at 1650 is called a grey import so no Australian guarantee if anything go's wrong you send it back at your cost and hope they fix it . for the 100.0 extra I got a full Australian guarantee return to shop if any thing went wrong + a couple of other things thrown in. So these are things you need to consider in the deal.

Login or Join to leave a comment
Login Join