A funny thing happened when I bought my son some new pajama pants.
My teenage son is allergic to polyester, so shopping for clothing for him can be challenging at times. I’d found some 100% cotton flannel pajama pants at a large national retailer, where the pants were selling for $20 per pair. I bought two pairs and brought them home.
He liked them and asked if I would mind picking up a few more pairs for him. I went to the retailer’s website to see if the same brand of pants came in different colors or styles, and I was very surprised to see the same pants were selling for $15 on the website. They weren’t on sale — the regular online price was $5 lower than the same pants were selling for in physical stores.
I sat in front of my computer screen pondering how the same pants could sell for $20 in store and $15 online — and if I bought them online, shipping was free for orders more than $35. So, I ordered three pairs.
While it seemed illogical to me that I could shop from the comfort of home and have my purchases show up at the door a few days later for less than the price of driving my own car to the store, the reality is I saved a total of $15 by buying the pants online. (When they arrived, each pair was in its own padded envelope, too, which left me mentally calculating how much the store actually spent to ship three separate packages to me — but that’s another issue.)
Had this not happened to me personally, I would not have suspected identical items might cost 25% more in store versus online at the same retailer. And yet, I had a similar experience a few days later when shopping for a new thermal shirt online. The size I wanted was out of stock, so I went to a brick-and-mortar location of the same chain. The shirt was priced at $12.99 online, but in store, it was $16.99.
A study from Anthem Marketing Solution notes 69% of retailers in their study have the same prices online and offline. However, when there is a difference between the in-store and online price, the online price is lower 65% of the time. One of the reasons for this is online sales might cost less because of lower overhead. Products stored in mass quantities and shipped from a warehouse might have lower staffing, utility, security and marketing expenses than items stocked and displayed in stores. It costs more to not only create marketing materials and in-store displays but also to staff thousands of individual stores around the country versus running a largely-automated shipping warehouse.
As we’re currently in a season when many of us are shopping for gifts, it’s also worth a reminder to look for coupon codes. Many retailers offer free shipping for purchases more than a specific spending threshold, and online retailers also offer numerous discounts and coupon codes for online purchases during the holidays.