Dick's Sporting Goods Launches Price Matching Program

Dick’s Sporting Goods is launching a program to match prices from Amazon.com and other online competitors. To qualify for the new price match program, which Dick's is calling “Best Price Guarantee,” the item must be the same brand, model and color, and the product must be immediately available at another retailer. A product is not eligible for price matching if it’s a markdown item at another store, for example, on Black Friday or Cyber Monday. The price matching program will be available at Dick's store locations as well as on its website.

Total Retail’s Take: While Dick’s did have a price match program in place before, it notably didn’t include Amazon. This change figures to help the sporting goods chain better compete with the online giant and win back some of those customers who shop around to get the lowest price. Furthermore, having a price match program in place has become table stakes for big-box retailers, which benefit from the positive PR such an announcement can generate while not risking too much. According to a CBS New York report, less than 5 percent of customers take advantage of stores’ price matching policies, either because they're unaware such a policy exists, or they don't want to put in the effort to check competitors’ pricing.