The Home Improvement Stores With The Best Price Match Policies

Despite hopes of a turnaround, inflation remains stubbornly high, with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) in November 2024 showing a 2.7% increase over the previous 12 months (as well as a 0.3% increase compared to October). While this is a far cry from the average 8% inflation that affected consumers in 2022 (when inflation peaked at 9.1% during the summer), it is worth mentioning that the current CPI inflation rate is on top of all of the prior inflation that has occurred post pandemic. This accumulation of inflation has added up to a 22.1% increase in consumer prices since February 2020. All of this is to say that, while inflation is still affecting consumers prices, every little bit of additional savings can be important when it comes to saving your budget. This means that utilizing price match policies at your favorite retailers could absolutely be worth the additional work.

You might be surprised to learn just how many national retailers offer price match guarantees and policies. Some even offer special price match policies and extended windows for adjustments during the holiday shopping season. However, it's worth noting that price matching is generally used for everyday pricing on products, meaning it cannot be used during special sales like Black Friday or other holiday events. Similarly, clearance items are generally not applicable. However, if you find you can't find applicable coupons or promo codes during a regular shopping time, price matching can save you additional money. Some retailers in particular go above and beyond when it comes to price matching.

Home improvement stores like Home Depot and Lowes offer price matching policies that allow you to pay a lower price for a product if you can prove it is offered for less from a competitor. As a customer you simply need to provide a store associate with proof in the form of a flyer, printout, photo, or even website that features the competitor's price (make sure you're within the specific listed offer period for that price as well). This can be especially useful when shopping outside of a sale or specific holiday season, and can allow you to take advantage of savings from retailers you might not even regularly shop at. While retailers like Home Depot used to also offer an additional 10% off a price matched item, most have eliminated that policy in the U.S. in the last several years (however, it's worth mentioning that Home Depot Canada does still offer this extra 10%).

Similarly, some retailers also allow you to apply price matching retroactively (not to mention retailers with especially good coupon policies), meaning if you end up spotting a better price on an item after you've already purchased it, you can apply for the difference in cost. Generally speaking, retailers will only price match against other retailers as opposed to third party sellers. This means that most Amazon products are generally not able to be price matched. Similarly, Lowe's specifically states you can't price match from one zip code to another meaning your price match needs to be from a local competitor.

There can be some important considerations to keep in mind when deciding to price match at a retailer. For starters, it's important to remember that price matching only works on identical items, down to the exact model and even year. Next, the product in question has to actually be available (meaning in stock) at both the retailer you are price comparing with and the retailer you are shopping at. Older items that might be low in stock at a certain retailer can experience a price drop in order for that retailer to free up space for additional, newer, products. This means the product in question could end up being out of stock relatively quickly. In this way, price matching can also require relatively good timing in order to price match before the item goes out of stock at your price comparison retailer.

Another consideration for price matching is whether you are looking to price match online or in person. Many retailers have different policies depending on the format of the price matching. An important element to keep in mind for online price matching is how the listed price you are comparing against handles shipping. Retailers like Home Depot won't include shipping in their price match, only guaranteeing a price match of the actual item total. This could affect how much the actual price difference is between the two retailers you are price comparing against. Similarly, it's important to make sure that the retailer you are price comparing with actually ships to your address.