Tonight I ran to my store for some essentials and watched someone in a line try to price match some items, she had a little bit of a rough time. She ended up getting it all, here is the lesson. She price matched every item in her cart, she didn’t have her ads and was”mistaken” on a couple of items and finally she acted like she was doing the store a big favor by price matching. I switched lines and tried my normal approach to see if I had a different reaction and here is my conclusion:
A. I NEVER price match my entire cart. Walmart is already the lowest price on 80% of the items in the store.
B. I ALWAYS try to have my ads. Yes, I am aware of what the policy says, but if you are going to sit there at your computer and tell me that you are willing to go to the trouble of planning out a great trip and not bring your ads on principal, I am going to tell you to up your medication.
C. I put my non-price match items first and tell them where my regular price items end and my PM items begin. It is just a little psychology, they see the items you are buying at reg price, it shows that you have planned a trip and have no worries that you are trying to cheat the system.
D. SMILE and BE COURTEOUS! That doesn’t mean don’t stand your ground, just don’t get indignant.
I am not going to guarantee that every Walmart is going to become your Stepford Wife, but I have not been turned down from price matching at any Walmart yet.
Here are the items I price matched on my trip tonight:
2 Mrs. Baird’s Bread: WM $1.78 Kroger $2.79 (BOGO)- Save .77
2 Capri Sun: WM $1.78 Kroger $1.47- Save .62
4 Nature Valley Granola Bars:WM $2.79 Randall’s: $1.77- .50/2 -Save- $5.08
2 Oak Farms Milk: WM $4.92 CVS $3.19 – Save $3.46
Total Saved $9.93 or 35% on PM items, only $1 worth of coupons.
What a dumb lady! I always bring my ads as well!
My hubby went to our Randalls tonight & discovered that they have Capri Suns for 99¢ when you buy 4. I asked him to grab an add, but I couldnt find them in the add!
I’m sure this is posted somewhere, but I can’t seem to find it… does Walmart now accept Target coupons? You know the ones you print off their website that are Target only? Thanks!
They only accept store coupons that have the price on them:
xxx item for $$$….
They will not accept other store coupons with dollars, cents, percent OFF.
Thank you 🙂 I’m glad I found out before I tried to use a coupon and felt stupid, LOL!!
We do accept other store coupons we jsut minus the value and still use it as a price match. We will also honor % off if it has a specified price on it
I am a cashier at Walmart and yes we do Ad-Macth Target.
“up the medication” lol
My guess is she’s a little unexperienced and needs to learn the etiquette of price matching.
Jenniger, yes they will as long as the coupon is for a specific price. It cannot say a $ or % amount off only.
oops Jennifer, sorry my typing is pretty bad and it gets worse when I speed.
No problem… I’ve been called worse! 😉
That is a killer price on the Capri Sun, I looked and couldn’t find it either.
I bring my ads as well – they are my back-up in case I encounter a problem. I have not price-matched my entire cart as of yet because if Wal-mart is indeed the low price leader then I would not be able to do so. On the other hand, if there comes a time when other local stores offer a lower price on every single item in my cart then you can bet I will be price-matching my entire cart. I am not there to pay a higher price just to appease a cashier or the store itself into not giving me a hard time. Just my point of view.
Funny you mention this topic, Paul, because it is price matching that makes me almost DONE with shopping Wal-Mart.
I price matched (had my ad!) the remaining 2 boxes of Splenda before the $3 off coupon expired (WM price was $3.98, Wags $2.99). She matched ok, but when it came to the coupons, she refused them and said she’d already price matched them! In turn, I refused the two boxes. She mumbled that she didn’t know if she COULD take them off my bill! THEN, she tried to “re-sell” the items to me, because 98 cents was a good deal!
What I didn’t realize was the coupon merely prompted her to verify the item price (should have been free plus $1 overage), but I’m so tired of feeling exhausted after using coupons at WM. I am upset that the cashiers don’t know their own policy (and obviously managers don’t train them) — I mean, what would it be like if customers where I work “told me” how to do my job? I’d say that I would want to know how to do my job better than my customers, but maybe this thinking is twisted.
I’ve found that you need to find the cashiers that know what they are doing. There are always those who have no clue what is going on! I’ve found that if you go to a younger lady cashier vs. a older one, they usually know what is going on, and also they are a little easier to convince what they are supposed to be doing! Some of the older ones do things the way they learned them “way back when” 🙂 Keep trying, with different cashiers till you find the one that you like (I have about 3 that I will gladly stand in line a bit longer to have check me out)
I’ve priced matched things for at least 50% off what Walmart was selling them for – plus used coupons. I’ve never brot the ads with me (mostly because I tend to forget them!) and never had a problem. They never even ask me what store I’m matching up too! I have about 6 different stores here I can price match too and have gotten some awsome deals that way. I also keep my items seperated, and have a list with me so even tho sometimes I feel like I don’t have it all together, the cashier thinks I’m organized 🙂 Put your reg. items first, then tell her you are PM – after its all done, I hand them the coupons, by that time she doesn’t remember what I PM and what I didn’t and she just scans them all w/o a question!
My advice…. Just keep trying! Also if its to hard to bring in all the ads, keep a copy of their coupon policy and price matching policy with you. (my store has signs posted by the registers) Hope you have better luck next time!
Sorry, I meant 1 penny overage on my items, above (not $1)!
Pamela, I completely feel your frustration. My advice is don’t give up. I am going to play devil’s advocate for a minute. Imagine that you have a job and have been doing it a certain way for many years. Now your boss comes to you and says: Hey, we want you to do this different and its a lot more work and you need to learn all this new info and then it will change every week(sale prices). Oh and BTW its for a pretty low percentage of our customers. Its a lot more work for a job that isn’t exceptionally high on the food chain. I hope this isn’t coming across as condescending, emotion is mute in type, but in my opinion it is still so much better than any other store.
I always bring the ads for price matching and have no problem. My WM is very coupon friendly! CS manager is always ask me if I could beat the lady who shopped with thousands of coupons and saved thousand bucks last month at his store. I’m sure I’ll never gone that far with my couponing b/c I have only 5 people in my family, but so fun to talk about coupons with them.
Ziploc bags regularly $4 something at Walmart, price match to Kroger for the 30 count 1.49 and each box has a $1.00/2 so they work out to $1.00 per box.
Just FYI: I’ve been told numerous times that WM’s coupon and PM is not a required traing for their employees. Its encouraged but not required. That includes management.
I’ve just recently started price matching at WalMart, and this week added produce and store brands for the first time. Wow! I saved a bundle, especially after using coupons and a potential Kellogg’s gas card rebate. I agree, it’s setting yourself up for frustration if you don’t take the ads. Maybe these people just like to argue.
I did have one horror story on price matching. I got a new clerk who hadn’t done it before, so a couple of other clerks (who were busy with their own customers and registers) walked her through it. When she was done, my bill seemed high. She had charged me the price match on each item, alright—after she also charged me the regular price! I headed straight to customer service and had to go through the whole receipt item by item, showing the CSR which charges should to refund. It was about $50 out of a $140 total. Now I ask the clerk if he or she is comfortable with price matching before I start checking out. All in all, politeness, organization, perseverence and vigilance are the keys to a successful shopping trip. I look forward to becoming more proficient at this. Thanks so much for your website.
One last comment: plasticjungle.com often has WalMart gift cards for sale at a 3% discount. They ship free and guarantee card value and delivery. Every little bit helps, right?
The thing about Walmart’s ad matching policy that sucks is that advertisements aren’t just printed. I don’t know about you guys but i’ve seen unadvertised deals in commercials too. I knew they were going to run into people who wanted to abuse the system because of not having to have the ad. I wish they would leave the ad matching part alone, you should have to have the ad, after all, they can’t just take your word for it. If they did everyone would get everything for free. Instead of messing with the ad match policy I wish they would allow stacking with 1 manufacturing and 1 store coupon. Walmart would have the coupon business in the bag if they did that. There would be NO need to shop anywhere else because as you say, for the most part, they already have the lowest price on single items. Anyway.. sorry, just a little blurb and my opinion. 🙂 Happy deal finding you guys!
I guess I should have said NON-printed advertisements in commercials instead of unadvertised deals. After all a commercial is an advertisement if they are telling you itmes on sale huh. 🙂
I just did my first price match at WM. Had my ad, told the lady first that if she needed to call a manager over, I had one item to price match and held up the ad for Rite Aid. She said not neccessary. Then when we finally got to the item, she had no idea what she was doing. Called the mngr over and then still messed it up, and then called the manager over again to fix it. Finally to have the bill end up $10.00 too high, called the manager over again! Yikes. I hate to say this but it seems as a highly educated, out of work professional who would take a job so near my home for $10/hr that they are hiring the wrong people. That is the frustrating part.
Hi Mike – was the milk you bought the same brand at both stores? I usually buy the WM brand milk…can I still price match if CVS is using another brand? (Obviously it would have to be, b/c WM milk isn’t sold at CVS). Thanks!
I know that WM will price match on your smartphone too. So I have been known to scan an item with my phone and price match. Tho it is rare. The other day i got pull ups. At wal mart they are $17.00. and Kmart had them for $6.00 so i bought one. They priced matched it. A week later i went back and scanned again. Again it said Kmart was $6. That time WM would not price match. Thank goodness I had my binder. I had a Q for $2/1 so I saved some money. My WM sometimes gives problems if you use Q’s and price match. But I think it depends on the cashier. some are friendly and willing to do it. Some dont like to and just want to get you out the door. lol
I’ve always avoided walmart until the pm began. my first trip was a disaster i left with my all you magazine – it was the week of the walgreens tape $.66 with $1/1q. i only wanted 5 to get my magazine for free, but they said no bogo. i explained i could do bogo with a specified price and after talking with the manager who said no i couldn’t i left. i called cs and a day later the store was calling me back saying i was correct and managers had been informed and i should go back. so i did two weeks ago and did pretty well. i priced matched most of my cart but i only bought 24 items so it didn’t take long and this time my cashier rocked! I had all my ads but had written everything down in my notebook (item, description, store name, price) so she just used my notebook and started ringing things up. She even told me I did good 🙂 So I guess like most trips you’ll have good ones and bad.
My local WalMart said that they will honor Target STORE coupons, but not the Target Web Coupons.
I plan to do my first price match EVER this evening at WM so I’m really glad I came across this post first!
Can anyone tell me if they price match on produce? The ad I have just lists things like “fresh blueberries, pint” but doesn’t list a specific brand. Will WM price match on things like this??
Thanks!
They should math it yes. But I found Blueberries pretty cheap today so you might not have to.