Pricing

There's a wonderful Yiddish reflection that goes, "The difference between genius and stupidity is genius has its limits," which may explain the difference between Apple stores and J.C. Penney/jcp. What's interesting is the strategies for both retailers were set by the same person - Ron Johnson, formerly SVP of Retail Operations for Apple, currently CEO of jcp. It was J.C. Penney when he joined and announced his long and short-term strategies. Long term: re-do all of the stores in the 111-year old chain into mini-boutiques-under-one-roof, which

Wayfair.com, the largest online retailer of home products and furnishings, today announced the launch of Daily Fair, a new flash-sale feature to engage shoppers with significant savings on home furnishings and decor. Daily Fair will deliver limited-time sales with steep savings on up to 1,000 different products a day, bringing the thrill of the deal to all Wayfair.com shoppers. With a selection of more than 5 million products from 5,000 suppliers, Wayfair.com is uniquely positioned to source great deals and savings across a wide range of home product categories at an unprecedented pace.

Best Buy has announced that it will officially throw its hat into the permanent price-matching ring, Reuters reported. Beginning on March 3, the electronics retailer will match online prices of competitors, with plans to also shorten its return policy, a company spokesperson said on Friday. Best Buy has struggled in the midst of its discount and online rivals, with many claiming that it's become a showroom for Amazon.com.

The struggling department store chain this week will begin adding back some of the hundreds of sales it ditched last year in hopes of luring shoppers who were turned off when the discounts disappeared, CEO Ron Johnson told The Associated Press. Penney also plans to add price tags or signs for more than half of its merchandise to show consumers how much they're saving by shopping at the chain — a strategy used by a few other retailers. For store-branded items such as Arizona, Penney will show comparison prices from competitors.

Don't like the price you're seeing on a coffee maker or a toothbrush? Try waiting five minutes. That lesson is starting to dawn on consumers as retailers embrace technologies that allow them to make rapid-fire price changes on a hourly or even minute-by-minute basis. Consumers are accustomed to rapid price fluctuations in the online world, used by sophisticated e-commerce retailers like Amazon.com, but brick-and-mortar retailers are embracing technologies that crawl the web for product prices and make adjustments on the fly both online and in stores for things like consumer electronics, power tools and even consumer packaged goods.

Every argument has two sides, right? Well, the latest twist to the retail industry's price-matching saga is no different, and camps are forming up on both sides of the pro and con divide. The latest chapter in the saga is Target and its recent announcement that its price-matching policy would move from a holiday season bonus to a year-long price-match extravaganza. Some say it's the start of a retail revolution; others call it a mistake that will do little to make even a ripple in the retail waters.

Fake prices are coming back at J.C. Penney, and this time they'll be more fake than ever. In a fresh bid to highlight Penney's prices as low, CEO Ron Johnson is pushing some manufacturers to concoct phony suggested retail markups for their clothing, sources told The Post. The plan, insiders say, includes erecting signs and fixtures that will display the sometimes made-up retail prices, while tagging the clothes and accessories themselves with Penney's own lower prices.

We reported last week that lululemon's CEO Christine Day said "You'll either offer promotions or not, and we're in the ‘not’ category." But lululemon is in the Yogabowl Warehouse Sale at Nassau Coliseum, an epic shopping event exclusive to those within range of Long Island from Feb. 1 to Feb. 3. Obviously this sale is different than your regular sales rack. There will be tailgating. There will be snacks. It's in a coliseum. The intent isn't to get bodies in the store, like promotions and sales attempt to do, so technically the company is getting rid of its surplus items without diluting the "no sale" branding.

Sure, go ahead and regift that present your friend bought for you at Wal-Mart, but whatever you do, don't return it. The world's largest retailer is apparently slacking off on giving full refunds to customers with gift receipts, at least according to a recent report by CBS Boston. When a producer from the network attempted to return a TV originally purchased for $248 using a gift receipt, she was only able to get back $228 — the unit's new on-sale price. 

Sometimes it pays to procrastinate. Millions of us still need to buy holiday gifts, and retailers want that business. So they've lowered prices to attract last-minute shoppers. "Retailers are definitely slashing prices," said Chris Garlotta, co-founder of ZingSale.com, a site that monitors prices for more than 10,000 products sold by hundreds of merchants on Amazon.com. "We found aggressive discounts that are often significantly better than Black Friday deals."