- Paul Sakuma
You might think the biggest challenge for Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is figuring out how to make money running a print newspaper, but here is a risk hitting much closer to home: Brick-and-mortar retail stores are becoming cheaper than AmazonAMZN +0.53%.
At least one store, that is. Prices at Bed Bath & BeyondBBBY +1.50% were on average 6.5% less than at Amazon for a basket of 30 items chosen by analysts atBB&TBBT +0.42% for one of their periodic pricing studies comparing the retailers. “We are becoming increasingly concerned Bed Bath & Beyond is sacrificing gross margin in order to drive top-line growth,” BB&T said — that is, increasingly concerned that Bed Bath & Beyond is starting to behave more like Amazon.
One big factor helping Bed Bath & Beyond are the 20% off coupons it regularly sends to its customers. Once you adjust for those, the price gap widens out to 25%.
But even without the coupons, Bed Bath & Beyond is cheaper than Amazon for many items, sometimes considerably so. This shower curtain, for example, is $24.99 at the former and $32.39 at the latter — a 23% difference before any coupons are taken into account.
Read more: Problem for Bezos: Mall Becoming Cheaper Than Amazon - Corporate Intelligence - WSJ:
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