Dive Brief:

• Wal-Mart Stores Inc.Thursday said that it may match the online prices of competitors like Amazon, and that it’s testing the policy in Atlanta, Charlotte, NC, Dallas, Phoenix, and in northwest Arkansas near its headquarters.

• The world’s largest retailer has a price-matching policy, but only against local stores in the vicinity of its physical stores.

• Earlier this year, in-store Wal-Mart customers became frustrated when they were told they had to buy products online in order to obtain Wal-Mart’s web prices. 

Dive Insight:

Wal-Mart in a way is running into the same problem as Amazon: Its long-time dominance in price competition is increasingly being met by more and more rivals. Consumers still have the upper hand, refusing to buy without some kind of incentive, and retailers like Wal-Mart and Amazon may finally have met the limit of the the race to the bottom that they started. In any case, Wal-Mart’s expanded price-matching strategy will only keep price competition fierce.