Take advantage of price-matching to save

June 17, 2013 (WPVI) -- One of the best ways to save money, especially on big purchases, is to take advantage of price-matching. That's when one store promises to match a low price from another store, or even an online retailer.

But price-matching policies often have a lot of conditions and fine print. So, which stores have the best price-matching deals? Fortunately, Cheapism.com has done the research to find out.

"We looked at a bunch of stores, the big chains," explains Cheapism's Max Levitte. "And we found out that Target, Best Buy and J.C. Penney have the most consumer-frlendly price-matching policies."

Levitte says Target and Best Buy will not only match other stores' advertised prices, but will also match certain online retailers, including Amazon.com -- as long as the products are from Amazon itself, and a not an "Amazon Marketplace" partner.

Lowe's also has a generous price-matching policy. Not only will they match a competitor's price, they'll also give you an additional 10% discount.

However, Levitte says some items, especially large appliances, are hard to price-match, because different stores don't carry the same models.

Levitte explains, "A way that the big stores go around it is that they have products manufactured specifically for them. For example, at Walmart, all the TVs are made for Walmart. Don't even try price-matching your TV at Walmart, because it's not going to work because nobody else has Walmart TVs. Same e for Home Depot and Lowe's. For example, most of their appliances are made for Home Depot and Lowe's."

He warns that Items may look exactly the same at two different stores, but if they have different model numbers, the price-match policies won't apply.

To best take advantage of price-matching, have the competitor's newspaper ad with you at the checkout or customer service counter. Or be able to pull up the lower price on price-comparison app such as ShopSavvyor RedLaser.

To read the details of Cheapism.com's analysis of price-matching policies, click here.

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