Target Joins Book Price War

A third discounter joins the fray.

Media & Marketing - WSJ
October 20, 2009

Target Joins Book Price War

By ANN ZIMMERMAN

Target Corp. joined the online book price wars, disclosing Monday it is slashing the prices of seven highly anticipated hardcover books available for pre-order on its Web site.

The Minneapolis-based retailer is charging $8.99 for the books, matching the price that Walmart.com has set for 10 expected best sellers. Walmart countered Monday evening by lowering the price of several of the books on its Web site by a penny to $8.98.

In the next few days, Target will expand its list of discounted books to the same 10, adding Sarah Palin's "Going Rogue"; Jim Butcher's "First Lord's Fury" and Barbara Kingsolver's "The Lacuna." The retailer said it needs the added time to add these books and their prices to its Web site.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. fired the first salvo in the price war last week when it first cut the prices on 10 books to $10, saying it plans to be the low-price leader in electronic commerce. Amazon.com Inc. quickly matched the $10 price on the same list of books. Walmart then chopped the price to $9, which Amazon again matched.

The recent penny-at-a-time moves suggest no further cuts. "It remains to be seen if we will go lower if the competition slashes prices further," said Target spokeswoman Kelly Basgen. "At the moment we are only matching what others are doing, but we're watching closely. We want to remain competitive."

The publishing industry is also watching warily to see if the price war will have lasting impact on book pricing and the contracts that publisher sign with authors. What is still unclear is whether this is a short-term promotion on Walmart's part, or whether Walmart.com intends to use cheap books to challenge Amazon as the Web's leading retailer