I would never have noticed this except that my daughter and I were in Walmart yesterday and saw some appliances with the color she wants in her kitchen (lime green... or whatever they call it now). They were on sale for $20 each. Just now I followed an email ad out of curiousity and they have the same appliances on the Walmart site for $85 for a set of 4. Now... I'm not a math whiz, but something isn't adding up right! 

Yep ... I find a lot of inconsistencies Wal-mart prices in general. A 12 pack of Scott toilet paper is $7.50 at our local store but the Walmart in the next town over sells the same thing for $8.59. Air Wick solid air fresheners were .94 here and $1.04 at the other store. Whiskas Temptation cat treats went from $1.50 to 1.73 to 1.82 and back down to 1.50 and now its back up to 1.82.

Each store must have a lot of leeway in setting prices, something that a lot of chains don't have. 

I've noticed that with the Wal-marts around here. We live within 25 miles of 5 different Wal-marts. And each one has different prices on the same items! I do not like Wal-mart...

Little Brother works for WM....and I've noticed that their prices are ALL over the place.  Initially I thought it was where we live (smaller community, less affluent) but nope.....

I'm with Frugal Me, I don't like WM.

 I wonder if it's the same way with other stores? I didn't intend for this to become another "bash Walmart" thread, just thought I could give a heads up for those who may be shopping in different areas. 

I will say that even though I don't like them....I still shop there....for now.  Aldi's is coming to N. Texas and I'm excited to see what they have to offer.  And I found a salvage store "sort of" on the way home from work....I just need to check them out.  So I hope to wean myself from them soon.

I also noticed that this happens at Sam's as well.  DH thought I was nuts until I showed him 3 bills from 3 Sam's stores over the course of 6 months.  We buy the same things there each time.  He thought it was the different sales tax rates, but it wasn't.

Pat:

Each store must have a lot of leeway in setting prices, something that a lot of chains don't have. 

That and the fact that they think people don't compare prices from store to store. I guess if they figure the price is lower than their competitors then its all good.

Pat:

 I wonder if it's the same way with other stores? I didn't intend for this to become another "bash Walmart" thread, just thought I could give a heads up for those who may be shopping in different areas. 

    I've seen this at Target.  We were looking for a food processor, and in doing the comparision, found that the price at the store was higher than the price online. I was going to pull the web page and ask them to match the price, but we actually found it somewhere else at an even better price.

LWolfT:

  I've seen this at Target.  We were looking for a food processor, and in doing the comparision, found that the price at the store was higher than the price online. I was going to pull the web page and ask them to match the price, but we actually found it somewhere else at an even better price.

 

That's interesting. Maybe we should be more careful to compare online prices with off line ones. I know I'm going to be more alert to that.