Price Matching: A Secret Weapon for Back-to-School Shopping

Getting the kids ready to return to school can be an expensive endeavor.

Roughly 9 in 10 Canadian parents of kids in K-12/college (92%) will back-to-school shop this year, according to a NerdWallet survey conducted by The Harris Poll from July 15-17, 2024. Among them, nearly half (47%) expect to spend $500 or more on those purchases.

Price-matching policies can come in particularly handy this time of year, especially if the things your students need aren’t already on sale.

Here are a few things to keep in mind when price matching for back-to-school.

How price matching works

Price matching is a service provided by some retailers and grocery stores. Essentially, it means the store will honour a competitor’s lower price on a product, as long as it meets the parameters of their price-matching policy.

Some retailers are so eager to win your business (and confident in their prices) that they’ll not only match a competitor’s price, but offer to beat it by a certain amount or percentage. This could add up to big savings, especially if you’re shopping for big ticket items or multiple students.

Other retailers offer generous grace periods in which to apply the price matching policy, meaning you can discover a lower price at a competitor days or even weeks after making a purchase, and still claim a refund for the difference.

Research price matching policies in advance

There are a number of big Canadian retailers that offer price matching, you just need to make sure you understand the small print as each retailer has its own rules dictating how the policy works.

Common conditions to watch for:

Which back-to-school retailers offer price matching?

Here are a few popular Canadian retailers and their price matching policies:

Best Buy: Will match online, in-store or print prices before you buy or within 30 days of purchase.

Leon’s: Will refund the difference if you find a lower price at a competitor within 60 days of purchase.

Sport Chek: Will match competitor prices on in-store items at checkout or within 15 days of purchase.

Staples: Will price match on “almost everything” it sells, at checkout or with 30 days of purchase (14 days for electronics).

The Brick: Will refund the difference for identical items within 30 days of purchase. If you bring proof of a lower price with you at the time of purchase, The Brick will give you an additional 20% discount.

Walmart: Unfortunately Walmart’s price matching policy was discontinued in 2020.

Amazon.ca: With such an emphasis on low prices, one might assume this giant online retailer offers price matching, but alas, it does not.

Other back-to-school shopping tips

Consider buy now, pay later

Available at online and brick-and-mortar retailers alike, ‘buy now, pay later,’ or BNPL, is a short-term financing option that allows you to break a purchase into multiple smaller payments — often without paying an interest or fees. BNPL can be useful for pricier back-to-school purchases, such as a new laptop or dorm room furniture, but should be approached with caution. BNPL services make it easy to overextend yourself if used for multiple purchases at once, and if the allotted payments aren’t made on time and in full, costly fees may apply.

Try money-saving mobile apps

There are a few different options for apps that can help you save on back-to-school shopping. Some, like Honey, work as price trackers and automatically apply promotional codes for added savings. Others, like Rakuten or Swagbucks, are cash-back apps that reward you for shopping with certain retailers.

Seek provincial assistance programs

Some provinces have programs to help relieve parents of the financial stress associated with back-to-school shopping. In Quebec, for example, families that are eligible for Family Allowance payments automatically receive $121 per child to fund the purchase of school supplies. Non-profit organizations may also be a source of help. Toronto Cares, which distributes backpacks full of school supplies to low-income families, is another example.

Use the right credit card

Making back-to-school purchases with a cash-back or rewards credit card is one way to make your money go further. Certain cards may have accelerated earn rates for shopping with specific retailers, or certain categories of purchases, like groceries.

Survey Methodology

This survey was conducted online by The Harris Poll on behalf of NerdWallet from July 15-17, 2024 among 1,014 Canadian adults ages 18 and older, among whom 296 are parents of kids in K-12/college. The sampling precision of Harris online polls is measured by using a Bayesian credible interval. For this study, the sample data is accurate to within +/- 3.8 percentage points using a 95% confidence level. This credible interval will be wider among subsets of the surveyed population of interest. For complete survey methodology, including weighting variables and subgroup sample sizes, please contact Bria Weaver, bweaver@nerdwallet.com.