Tom, I simply can't agree with anything you wrote. It sounds as if you are suggesting that WM should match the price of any item for any customer from any other competing retail outlet, be they B&M or virtual AND they should be responsible for finding that lower price. The costs of operating a B&M retail operation are already pretty high and your suggestion would make them even higher.
Clearly in the long run, they can't build a business on price matching. That is just a defensive tactic not to run customers off. However, the Amazon price doesn't even give Amazon a decent profit so surely won't give WM one. More and more we'll see people like WM go to the Costco strategy. Costco doesn't carry the same model numbers on many items as other retailers. They'll stock sets of pots and pans but combinations slightly different from other retailers, put together just for them. On HP printers, they'll have model 8620 while everyone else has 8625.
Price matching in retail is nothing new but matching internet prices is and most retailers don't do it. It use to be stores and car dealers would promise to match any advertised price, but not any price. Walmart price matches, including their grocery, matching any advertised price. However, very few people go to the trouble. If you want, you can go through all grocery ads and then go to Walmart and where you find identical items cheaper in other ads, get a price match at the register. If you did that extensively you'd take longer than coupon clippers. Clipping coupons is still a way to save very large amounts of money if you buy a lot of groceries, but very few people do it extensively. There are apps like Coupon Sherpa. I once was in line behind a woman using an app. I stayed only because my groceries were already on the belt and I was curious. I watched her get $350 worth for $20.
Ultimately, I don't care about getting the lowest price. What I do want is a reasonable price and we can all disagree on what is reasonable. In more retail it must be at least 50% more than the cost to the retailer, which will give the retailer a 33% margin. In traditional retail it was always double to give a 50% margin, then with markdowns over time you'd still hope to achieve a 35-40% margin.
Boats are interesting. Those sold through brokers typically only have 10% margins but those sold through dealers have MSRP's that provide 30% margins on average. Well, except Yamaha. with 10.5% margins. Interesting strategy as one sees those MSRP's and thinks a 24' Yamaha is far less expensive than a 24' Sea Ray. Not.
Odd because on their outboard motors, Yamaha provides a 16.67% margin but only 10% on Waverunners. Mercury provides a 25% margin, Evinrude 23%, Suzuki 16.75%. Makes it interesting. You want to buy a 9.9 hp motor. Yamaha is $3245, cost the dealer $2705. Mercury is $3675, cost the dealer $2756. Evinrude is $3730, cost the dealer $2870. Suzuki is $3045. Cost the dealer $2535.
