What To Do When Walmart Won’t Price-Match Amazon “Prime” Items

Updated November 15, 2023 by Kyle
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Walmart has a fairly straight forward price-match policy. Essentially, when shopping in-store, they’ll match the online price of a select list of online retailers, including Amazon.com. But were you aware that most Walmart locations won’t accept a price match from an Amazon product labeled “Prime”? This is because Prime is considered a “club” that requires a membership fee. But never fear, I have a easy work-around that will allow you to keep your Prime membership and still get a Walmart price-match every single time. Keep reading for the juicy details…

Walmart Electronics

 The Walmart/Amazon Price Scenario

So here’s my shopping scenario: Recently, I was at my local Walmart purchasing a Sony Bluray player for $88, and like I always do, I pulled out my smartphone and used the Amazon app to check their price. Sure enough, Amazon had a lower price of $78.90 on the same player.

But when I approached a Walmart associate and showed her the lower price, she told me that because it was an “Amazon Prime” price, they would not match it because it was part of a “Club” that required a membership fee.

I then talked to an assistant manager and he told me the same exact thing. So I checked out the Walmart website and sure enough they don’t honor the “prices from auctions or (retailers) requiring memberships”. So I ended up just ordering the item from Amazon directly.

The Walmart Price-Match Workaround

But what happens if you need the item right away and Amazon has a lower price than Walmart? In other words, you want to take advantage of the lower Amazon price and immediately buy the item from your local Walmart. This is undoubtedly a scenario that you’ll eventually encounter.

Here’s what you gotta do: Simply use your smartphone’s web browser, do NOT login to your Amazon account, and pull up the product page directly from the Amazon website. By doing it this way, the product will NOT say “Prime” next to it.

Also, you can sign-out of your account on the Amazon app and “Prime” will disappear from product pages.

Either way will work and Walmart will have no choice but to give you the lower price via a price-match.

Final Thoughts

Surprisingly, in many cases, the “non-Prime” price may actually be cheaper than the Prime price which is a double-win for shoppers.

This is because Amazon has been known to bump-up Prime prices in an attempt to make up for the free 2-day shipping that comes with your $99 annual membership.

This technique has been happening quite a bit recently, and I see it happening even more in the future as Prime continues to grow in popularity.

Ask the Reader: Have you been able to use this work-around to get Walmart to honor a cheaper Amazon price? If so, did it go smoothly? As usual, I look forward to your comments.


By Kyle James

Photo by Random Retail.

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Jake

That’s a nice scenario, however Wal-Mart employees are supposed to confirm prices on a machine that a customer wouldn’t have any influence over. I’m not saying it wouldn’t net you the price you want, infact it may even benefit you, but you shouldn’t have to put any effort into logging out and scheming.

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James

I work in electronics at walmart. Whenever we get customers who ad match with amazon in electronics we check our phones. Don’t be a dick and trick the associate, because falsely marking down a price could result in the employee being fired.

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Mike

He’s not tricking the associate, he’s just saying that if you’re logged into your prime account, the price will say prime by it. By logging out, you will get the non prime price, which is usually the same, but sometimes higher or lower in price. By doing this, the customer is not violating Walmart’s policy, and is only using it to their advantage. There’s no tricking going on.

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Bob

Even if I sign out it still shows its a Prime item. This may be an old post or they have updated their systems.

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Gloria

I went into a Walmart store to get price match they would not honor the price by only they wanted me to pay the shipping cost plus shipping

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Bob

That is because Walmart sold on 12/31/2021 to a huge computer maker in China so Amazon runs them as well as target and many others. The SEC has broken the laws
and not enforced the laws . Everyone in office knows this and
if you think US is a 2 party state sorry no it isnt.

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Jay

Actually that process won’t work. Walmart does not ad match any Amazon item. This is because Amazon doesn’t operate a physical location. A store has to have a physical presence. Amazon, eBay don’t have an actual store you can go to so Walamrt won’t match them. Those companies have lower overhead and can offer cheaper prices because of it. The ‘prime’ issue of a paid membership is also another reason they will not ad match. It’s the same reason they won’t ad match to Costco, subsidized product cost.
Good luck though. You’ll scam an associate or two but the ones who know the correct policy won’t be fooled.

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Kenzie

Actually, Walmart’s price matching policy includes online retailers. Google it 🙂

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Mike

This is not true Walmart will price match Amazon as long as it is shipped and sold by Amazon, check their polices here http://help.walmart.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/31/kw/price

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Annyee Mann

And those same assist.mgrs will ( usually, though not all), adamantly say, no sir I cannot give you that item mislabeled on price though there’s a whole 4 item count of the same item. Though a 20 % discount is the best I can allow. While knowing that 1. the customer is accurate 2. 20 % is a random # and 3. if the customer takes his complaint into Corporate via phone photos and an email he will get his one item at that low priced sticker amount.

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