CE Pricing 'Significantly Less' Competitive the Week After Thanksgiving, Says Goldman

Online consumer electronics prices were “significantly less price competitive” last week, said an e-commerce report issued Monday by Goldman Sachs, which said Amazon, Best Buy, Target and Walmart raised their overall basket prices more than 8 percent over the previous week. Prices on TVs, which were “almost at parity” across the board the last week of November, were bumped up by varying percentages last week at the four major retailers, with the average TV price in Goldman’s sample basket up 18.5 percent for the week. Goldman’s basket included eight Samsung and Vizio TVs, three Beats by Dr. Dre headphones, two Canon digital cameras, the 16 GB iPad minis, two PlayStation SKUs and an Xbox 360, an iHome Bluetooth speaker and a Garmin navi unit. Among the Goldman basket items, the most highly discounted product was the Samsung 1080p 60-inch smart TV, slashed by 23 percent at Amazon to $998, compared with $1,397 at Walmart, $1,699 at Target and $1,099 at Best Buy. The Samsung 60-inch TV repeated as the main driver of price competitiveness for the week, averaging 15 percent in discounts, Goldman said. For the week just ended, Best Buy raised prices on eight items, while trimming the price of the iPad mini $10 to $239, matching Walmart. Walmart’s basket price, meanwhile, rose 12 percent last week on seven basket price hikes. The retailer was out of stock on five of its eight TVs, with the Samsung 50-inch, a key driver of Walmart’s below-average basket price, selling out for the week. Target raised its TV prices by 17 percent, the most of the four retailers, Goldman said.