This weekend I was talking to my dad about a new watch he bought to monitor his heart rate and blood pressure. It was on sale at Best Buy, so he was happy to get a good deal. A few days later, however, he saw Best Buy advertising the same watch at an even lower price.
Normally this may have resulted in a twinge of buyer’s remorse, but as my dad informed me, Best Buy has a 15-day price guarantee. If you buy something from them and then see a better price at Best Buy within 15 days, you can get a refund on the difference.
It reminded me of something we already do at Stonemaier Games. Whenever I promote a targeted sale, I try to mention that if you recently bought the same item from us at a higher price, we’ll refund the difference. It’s the same thing as Best Buy, but less clearly defined and not permanently advertised anywhere.
So I thought, why not make it official? Why have a customer-facing policy if most customers don’t even know about it?
Hence the introduction of our 20-day price guarantee:
If you buy anything from the Stonemaier Games webstore and later (within 20 days of the purchase) see a better sale price currently listed on our webstore or via a newly introduced promo code for a specific product on our webstore, you can send us your order number and we will refund the difference (contact@stonemaiergames.com).
This guarantee includes standard and Champion pricing, but you cannot retroactively apply a Stonemaier Champion discount to an order placed before you were a Champion.
I like this for a few reasons beyond what I’ve already stated:
- It frees customers to make a choice today instead of holding out for a better price tomorrow.
- It reduces the possibility of buyer’s remorse as it relates to price.
- It encourages customers to check back on the webstore in case there happens to be a better price listed within 20 days, leading to more webstore exploration.
- It sets clear boundaries as to a reasonable timeframe to expect a partial refund.
Also, will serve as a promotional device to encourage anyone who visits the webstore to buy with confidence.
Why 20 days? There’s no hard data around that timeframe. It just seemed like a reasonable amount that was both respectful to the customer and to Stonemaier Games.
Oh, and we also launched this policy just a few days after we created a “Special Offers” section on our webstore that is automatically populated with any products we offer on sale. I thought that might be helpful for customers who are shopping for something but don’t really know what they want.
What do you think about this policy? Have you seen other companies implement it in the tabletop industry or beyond? I’d love to hear about what works and what doesn’t work.
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13 Comments on “Our New 20-Day Price Guarantee”
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[…] Price Guarantee: In May we officially defined a policy to ensure customers that they can buy something from our webstore today and not need to worry that […]
Hi Jamey,
As a customer I love the idea of a price match. And it is extremely generous from you. However, I think that us, clients and customers, should take ownership of our own decisions. At least this is what I try to do in my life. And this relates to our willingness to pay. If at the moment of the transaction we were happy with the price paid, why should we demand a compensation if a few days later?
Moreover, if I will not be happy with a company that demands an extra payment for an article whose price went up right on the day after I bought it, why should I expect a refund for a product whose price went down after I bought it?
Let me try to explain myself. If the price on let’s say the 11th of June was fair to me and I was happy to pay it, it is because at that time I found that the product was worth such amount. Therefore, if the product becomes cheaper after a couple of days, well, the only one to be blamed is me. Maybe I could not really wait for the product to be available at a lower price. Or I could not be bother because, again, I found the price fair: the price and my willingness to pay for the product were a match!
For example, although I know that sales start -at least in the UK- on the 26th of December (boxing day), if I need to wear something new for Christmas eve, I will go to the shops and buy the new shirt of pair of trousers. I will not expect a compensation just because the price dropped by 15% after boxing day. Why should things be different just because I was not aware of the forthcoming price reduction?
Moreover, if when doing your calculations for the sale you don’t only need to take into account potential purchases for the length of the sale, but also those who came either too early or too late, then it is likely that a 15% discount will not be economically viable anymore, and you will need to limit your offer to a 10% off.
Finally, I think that apart from being a practice that is not always economically viable, it adds pressure (maybe even unfairly) to other companies that cannot afford such a promise.
Have a lovely weekend!
You sound like an amazing customer! :) I appreciate that philosophy, and that’s typically my approach too.
Best Buy Elite and Elite+ members (spend so much in a calendar year to get that status) get 30 and 45 day return windows, which also extends the Price Match Guarantee. The one year we got a TV from them and hit Elite+, that 45 window was used quite a bit and Best Buy easily became the go to place for us for many items, a big part being that price match guarantee. Usually takes a 5-10 minute online chat to get the price difference returned.
Amazon does not have any price matching policy. Which I always found odd since, depending on the item, I could simply return the item and re-order it, costing Amazon more shipping charges if they pay for the return (they don’t always). So usually you can get a price difference from Amazon support but its always a hassle.
Do you expect to keep this policy all year? So say someone orders a week ahead before Black Friday (or whenever you like to do holiday webstore sales). In a way, extending the length of a sale, but gaining (likely) customer satisfaction. Best Buy does not Price Match Guarantee during the Black Friday weekend. Although I have see more and more retailers promising “We won’t go lower” prices during Black Friday weekend as people were holding out for week before Christmas sales, expecting them to be cheaper then.
That’s an interesting question about Black Friday. We typically don’t do seasonal sales, but people may not know that. Even if we did some on any given year, we wouldn’t discount anything so low that we wouldn’t be able to keep the price guarantee.
I wonder how big retailers do it when the customer misses the window by like 1 day? In your case, what would you do if a customer emailed you and said he/she purchased a game 21 days ago?
We’d honor the request. :)
I like this Jamey… just an idea… I assume someone gets the difference refunded to their method of payment (ie. credit card). What about if you offered an option for a slightly higher amount back (difference plus some percentage?) if the purchaser keeps the refund on account with Stonemaier Games? That might encourage some people to take that higher amount – but then you know those dollars will definitely come back to you at some point.
Thanks Mike! We do something like that when paying for playtesters, but for this specific purpose I’d prefer to just refund the difference, giving customers full flexibility as to what they do with those funds.
I think it is a great value added, low risk move. I like how clearly you stated the benefits for doing so. I’ve seen a statistic that only 5% of American shoppers take advantage of price matching guarantees with makes it even more appealing from a seller’s perspective. I feel 20 days is an arbitrary number – I’m more accustomed to seeing 30 days, so feel like seeing 20 days in comparison is undercutting it somewhat, especially with no exact science or reason behind it. I also have seen others (outside the industry) offering to not only match but further beat that price…by as little as 1 cent or even up to 10%, any thought given to incorporating that? Overall, great policy.
I’m open to changing it to 30-days–can you let me know where you’ve seen that? I was basing it off of an improvement over Best Buy’s 15-day policy, not an undercut to other policies.
I’m not quite sure what the value is in beating our own discounted price with the partial refund–I think it’s fair to both parties to simply provide an accurate refund equal to the difference between the better price and the original amount paid.
Update: I Googled “30 day price guarantee” and did indeed find some major retailers who offer it. I’ll consider change it that timeframe!
Thanks for the quick reply. And you’re absolutely right…my last point (not fully developed sorry) was more geared towards matching and beating a retailer’s price, however this policy is for purchases from the Stonemaier Games webstore which 100% makes sense to match and make equal. Appreciate how you always think of the customer.