Things are heating up in the war between Amazon and bricks-and-mortar retail. The latest dispatch comes in the battlefront comes from the Wall Street Journal, who reports that at least one retailer has succeeded at undercutting Amazon by a good margin.
Prices at Bed Bath & Beyond were on average 6.5% less than at Amazon for a basket of 30 items chosen by analysts at BB&T for one of their periodic pricing studies comparing the retailers. “We are becoming increasingly concerned Bed Bath & Beyond is sacrificing gross margin in order to drive top-line growth,” BB&T said — that is, increasingly concerned that Bed Bath & Beyond is starting to behave more like Amazon.
Incredibly, that 6.5% differential doesn’t even include coupons. Factor that in, and Bed Bath’s price advantage widens considerably!
One big factor helping Bed Bath & Beyond are the 20% off coupons it regularly sends to its customers. Once you adjust for those, the price gap widens out to 25%.But even without the coupons, Bed Bath & Beyond is cheaper than Amazon for many items, sometimes considerably so. This shower curtain, for example, is $24.99 at the former and $32.39 at the latter — a 23% difference before any coupons are taken into account.
Game on!
Speaking of Bed Bath, we have some exciting news to share about them on the mobile-coupon front early next week. Stay tuned!
via “Problem for Bezos: Mall Becoming Cheaper Than Amazon – Corporate Intelligence” [WSJ]