This morning I got an interesting email from a former colleague of mine. Interesting because it was a cc of an email she had wrote to 1800PETMEDS about the price of Frontline Plus flea treatment for dogs.

My friend (let’s call her Scarlette) pointed out to the folks at 1800PETMEDS.com that their product (a three month supply of Frontline Plus) sold for more than $40. Scarlette could get the same product from Costco.com for $35 S & H included. (I later found the same product at
petproductsontheweb.com for $33 S & H included.)

Despite having a price-matching policy, 1800PETMEDS was going to make Scarlette go through a complex process, just to get Costco’s widely advertised price matched! Why?

It’s sort of senseless in an online environment to make your customer go through hoops to get your best deal, when all she has to do is click once to go to your competitor’s site and buy from them.