By Alexandria Sage
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc
Black Friday, the day after U.S. Thanksgiving, is the kick-off to the holiday shopping season and a gauge of how overall holiday retail sales will shape up.
Online retailer Amazon, like Wal-Mart, prices itself on its low prices and Wall Street believes the company will gain market share this season through its wide selection and deals. The company said on Monday it had no "official" way to price match, but was confident it would beat rivals' prices.
"We have our hands on every Black Friday circular we can find and we're working hard to match or beat prices," Amazon.com spokeswoman Sally Fouts told Reuters.
Analysts say Monday's announcements on price matching by Wal-Mart and the price scanner from Amazon show that the two retailers -- the largest in the world offline and online, respectively -- are both aiming to assure consumers in their respective arenas that they are the go-to places for deals.
"Wal-Mart will win offline and Amazon will win online," said Forrester analyst Sucharita Mulpuru.
Because Wal-Mart's price matching is available only in its stores, and not on Walmart.com, it won't be a draw to most Amazon shoppers who value the convenience of shopping online and have no plans to join the chaos of stores on Black Friday, she said.
"Really it's more a marketing ploy than anything," said Mulpuru. "The reality is the retailers themselves, they lose a lot of money because they price match ... it's not a very effective way to do business in the long run."
And it's a hassle for shoppers who must search for rival ads, clip them and then wait in line on a busy shopping day, she added.
PRICE LEADER
Still, Wal-Mart's price matching guarantee shows that the retailer -- whose same-store sales have been in a protracted funk -- wants to reestablish its reputation as the low-cost leader during the holidays, said Toon Van Beeck, senior analyst at IBISWorld.
"They're trying to pull out all the stops and come back to their good growth rates and win back customers to get them to realize they're a one-stop shop," said Van Beeck, who cited Wal-Mart's free shipping pledge announced recently.
As for Amazon's price check app, Van Beeck said the timing was good given the prevalence of smart phones, but said the scanner was more a long-term strategy than one geared specifically to the Black Friday holiday.
EBay Inc
Wal-Mart is one of a few retailers that will be open on Thanksgiving Day this year, seeking to get an edge over rivals like Target Corp
Best Buy said it expects higher sales on this year's Black Friday.
Last year, Wal-Mart and Amazon.com went head to head online during the holidays, each retailer progressively lowering prices by a penny at a time on top-selling books.
Wal-Mart has been beefing up its online unit over the past year, but this still represents a small portion of its overall sales.
The company recently said it would offer free shipping on electronics and thousands of other items, a deal Amazon said it already offered through a program that provides free shipping on items over $25.
Shares of Wal-Mart closed down 2 cents at $54.38 on the New York Stock Exchange. They are up 1.7 percent from the beginning of the year.
Amazon shares are up 27 percent in the same time frame. They rose 3.4 percent, or $5.57, to close at $170.39 on Monday.
(Additional reporting by Phil Wahba; Editing by Maureen Bavdek, Gerald E. McCormick, Gary Hill)
