Wstore throws down pricing gauntlet

Online corporate dealer Wstore is stepping up its attack on the UK reseller market with an ambitious price-matching scheme aimed at wooing customers.

Online corporate dealer Wstore is stepping up its attack on the UK reseller market with an ambitious price-matching scheme aimed at wooing customers.

The reseller is offering to not only match any competitor's price, but it will also refund customers double the price difference if they find products they have already purchased from Wstore cheaper elsewhere.

Tony Price, managing director of WStore, said: "This is a two-pronged pricing pledge which will appeal to both new and existing customers. We are not confining it to any particular type of reseller. Our offer applies to all of our UK competitors, whether they are online stores, high-street retailers, corporate resellers, mail order companies or catalogue specialists."

Price said the offer is not a "gimmicky, short-term promotion" but will always be available to customers. It does not apply to exclusive promotions offered by resellers, and customers have to furnish written proof of cheaper prices. The offer applies to all products except for certain memory and disk products.

Price claimed the scheme was the "most aggressive pricing initiative ever undertaken by a reseller" and said it will have a "significant impact on [Wstore's] business and market share".

Niki Torrance, marketing manager at Digica, said while the initiative was a "significant threat to dealers just selling hardware", it would not really affect resellers that offer value-added services. "I can't see that any of our existing customers will want to take that route," she said.

Shane Gallagher, managing director of First Stop Computer Group, agreed that while some business would be lost, 90 per cent of corporate customers did not buy merely on price. He said: "They still buy from VARs because we offer value. I don't see that just because you can buy cheaper online, that people will."