The holiday battle over iPhone sales left Best Buy with $65,000 in losses, the company said on Friday. The Wall Street Journal cited Best Buy's claims as part of a piece on Walmart's advertising practices, pointing out that Best Buy was "compelled" to price-match Walmart's aggressive iPhone 5 discounts, leaving the big-box electronics retailer in the red.
Both chains offered up discounts on the iPhone 5 ahead of the 2012 holiday season—Best Buy started in early December with a $50-off offer, taking the lowest-end iPhone 5 down to $149.99. But Walmart was quick to follow with its own discounts, dropping the price to $127. (The WSJ claims Walmart advertised $150 for the iPhone 5, but the numbers posted on Walmart's Facebook page on the day of the promotion said $127.)
Because of Best Buy's price-matching guarantee, the retailer was essentially forced to offer the iPhone 5 at an even larger discount than it originally planned. This is undoubtedly not a new experience for Best Buy, but according to the WSJ, Best Buy (and other retailers) claim Walmart offered the steep discount without having much stock available. As such, Walmart allegedly only sold a limited number of iPhone 5 units at the discounted price, while other retailers ended up taking a major loss by price-matching.
In Best Buy's case, that loss amounted to $65,000 for the iPhone 5 alone—the company also claimed Walmart advertised that it carried a laptop for $251 less than Best Buy, but the two models were actually different, with varying specs.
Walmart, for its part, claims it sold plenty of iPhones "and that it was 98 percent in stock at stores that carried the devices," wrote the Journal, without giving any concrete sales numbers.
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