Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) continues to price products aggressively just as the holiday shopping season arrives. Goldman Sachs analysts say that in their survey of toy and consumer electronics prices, that Amazon widened its lead in both categories.
Amazon still leads in toy pricing
In a report dated Nov. 11, 2014, analyst Matthew Fassler and his team said that in general, prices of toys remained the same as last week. They report that Amazon’s pricing got more competitive this week, however, and the online retailer increased the gap between its prices and the prices of its competitors. They also say that Amazon offered the lowest prices on all toys except for one and cut the price of eight items in the toy category while raising its price on two of them.
They found that Amazon brought its prices in line with those at Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) on the items Wal-Mart beat it on last week. Wal-Mart also lost the benefit it had on its One-Day special sales.
Prices at Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT)’s stores were relatively unchanged this week, which means that it fell even further behind the prices offered by Amazon and Wal-Mart. Toys R Us cut prices on five of the items they checked but still had the highest prices overall. Charts are courtesy Goldman Sachs.
Amazon still beats competitors in electronics
Turning to consumer electronics, the Goldman Sachs team reported that Amazon also became more competitive in pricing this week. The online retailer cut prices on five items. The analysts point out that Amazon is no longer directly selling the iPad Mini, although it can still be purchased on the site through third party sellers. They also report that Amazon cut its prices on a big ticket TV that gave Best Buy Co Inc (NYSE:BBY) the edge last week.
The analysts say that Wal-Mart kept its prices mostly the same this week, bringing its prices under those of competitors on a simple average. However, the big box retailer fell behind in price weighted average due to price reductions by competitor. Target was the only retailer in their survey to increase prices this week, raising them on the selected items by between 6.5% and 11%. Best Buy cut its prices on three items.
