As the all-important holiday shopping season approaches, Best Buy is getting aggressive with its online rivals.
The nation’s largest electronics retailer is planning to match the prices of Internet competitors such as Amazon.com, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.
Best Buy also plans to offer free home delivery on merchandise that is out of stock in stores, the Journal said.
The move follows a similar one by Wal-Mart earlier this week, as the world’s largest retailer looks to counter the ascendance of Amazon.com. Wal-Mart said it would test a same-day delivery service in select markets for customers who buy popular items online during the holiday shopping season.
Best Buy’s aim is to turn more shoppers into actual buyers and improve the percentage of people who leave its stores having made a purchase -- about 40 percent of shoppers at present, according to the Journal.
The availability of discounted prices on web-based stores such as Amazon.com have led to a phenomenon called “showrooming,” where shoppers browse gadgets in stores only to buy them for less online.
The growing popularity of online discounts has weighed heavily on revenue growth for big-box chains such as Best Buy, which are struggling to adapt their operations to compete with the new paradigm in shopping -- mobile- and computer-aided shopping.
At the same time these stores don't want to overreact or lose sight of what made them successful -- that is, selection and service, the Journal noted.
Wal-Mart’s plan to try out a same-day delivery service is an attempt to leverage the strength of its massive store base, basically turning the spaces into online order fulfillment centers for people who don't want to wait a few days for delivery, the newspaper noted.
Click here to check Best Buy's share price.
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