Feature: The Price is Right

Price matching in any form is universally viewed as a victory for consumers. For retailers, however, it's at best a cosmetic bandage that ignores deep wounds below the surface. For that matter, if brands are selling products online and in-store at the same price, they're issuing hundreds or thousands of price changes in-store every day. There's no retailer on the planet that has enough labor to manage hundreds or thousands of price changes every day, so there will always be a difference between online and offline pricing — at least until networked electronic shelf labels become ubiquitous. Even if retailers could spend the time to match prices, the question remains: Should they?