Dive Brief:

• Wal-Mart is offering an online price comparison tool on its website in markets that include Dallas, San Diego, and Atlanta.

• While the retailer, like others, has offered customers refunds of the price difference if they find an item cheaper elsewhere, this feature has Wal-Mart providing that service itself, a retail first. While it operates as an online tool, it applies only to products available at a particular store, and compares prices to competitors physically nearby.

• The company wouldn’t say if or when the feature would be available nationwide.

Dive Insight:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is upping the ante in the price-comparison game, even with this limited launch. The retail company has seen numbers of shoppers in its stores drop recently as its customers, many on the lower end of the income scale, continue to struggle in the current economy. It keeps the focus on prices, something that many retailers have been trying to avoid after the price pressures of the past holiday season proved detrimental to their bottom lines. Certainly this is a way to fight Amazon, which has consistently proven its ability to provide the best prices on large numbers of items in nearly all categories. Look for other discount retailers to follow suit in making it easier for consumers to compare prices, and for price to stay an important variable in retail.