Price guarantee

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The so-called price guarantee is the assurance of an offering company, usually a retail company , to adjust its price of a certain product or article to the sales price of a competitor under certain framework conditions . (Descriptions such as "lowest price guarantee" or "comparative price guarantee" would be more relevant). Often the companies "reward" their customers for discovering a cheaper offer with an additional discount, which is often related to the cheaper offer.

The price guarantee primarily fulfills two functions: On the one hand, it gives companies an overview of the price landscape of a certain product within the set framework - the customer is, as it were, named an independent price scout. On the other hand, customers can be bound to the company in this way, regardless of the pricing policy pursued , because the customer is always guaranteed the lowest price .

The framework conditions set by individual companies are to be assessed critically. Often only certain companies or price categories are allowed as comparison prices. Internet retailers or promotional prices, for example, are often excluded. In individual cases, this has to be assessed by the customer, a retailer who runs its own stationary business has significantly higher costs than a pure Internet retailer . The service at a stationary dealer is usually better because you have a contact person on site. The exclusion of e-commerce can only be viewed as fair.

In addition, many companies require their customers to provide (written) proof of the cheaper price at the competitor - who can have little interest in helping the customer to buy from the competition. In such cases, the price war threatens to be carried out on the shoulders of the customer, because the guarantee is only given in conjunction with the competition, who in turn do not guarantee that they will prove the lower price.

From a competitive point of view, the price guarantee is to be assessed critically: If a company gives a price guarantee, the more cost-efficient competitor discourages them from offering lower prices. Overall, this can lead to even higher prices.

To distinguish from this price guarantee is announced by companies guaranteed price , trading an interesting instrument of psycho strategic pricing policy . With him the maintenance of the announced price is guaranteed for a certain period of time, in the catalog of a mail order company z. B. for the duration of its validity.

Some retailers had offered special model variants of devices. With the new model name, a direct comparison is only possible on the basis of the data sheets and product properties.

Individual evidence

  1. Focus: Researchers warn against too high prices
  2. Susann Kowatsch: The tricks of the electric markets ( Memento from January 7, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), SWR from October 18, 2016 / NDR from December 1, 2014 (YouTube)

See also