Best Buy Loses $65,000 In One Day Because Of Price Matching Wal-Mart's iPhone Deals

4 January 2013

Best Buy said it lost about $65,000 in profit the day Wal-Mart’s promotion first ran on Facebook, because it was compelled to match Wal-Mart’s advertised $150 price, even though it concluded that Wal-Mart didn’t actually have a sufficient number of iPhones available.

Apparently, Best Buy has filed a complaint against Wal-Mart because of this … but can someone explain to me what grounds they have to do this¹?

Although I don’t profess to be any sort of expert in this area, it just seems like Best Buy’s policies screwed themselves over. How is it Wal-Mart’s fault?

¹ Earlier in the article, the Journal explains that Best Buy also contested a case of Wal-Mart’s advertising as untruthful. To be clear, I can recognise the validity of that part of the complaint.