Rank: Member
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Rank: Member
Joined: 3/24/2005(UTC)
Posts: 311
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Thanks for that article post.
We are currently seeing our manufacturer's getting more serious about MAP pricing as well. Its a real shame that a company cannot sell a product for what they think a customer will buy it for. It makes it very hard to be competitive with others in our market when we are all selling the same product for the same price. |
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Rank: Member
Joined: 3/3/2006(UTC)
Posts: 1,737
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Manufacturers used to be in control. Walmart has shown us that retail muscle trumps all.
I had a situation with one of my resellers. I increased the price on a product and an on-line store owner insisted on offering it at his old wholesale cost as a loss-leader. The price was so low that if it continued, I'd have lost all of my retail sales of that product. I threatened to stop filling his orders.... It worked, but it wouldn't have if it was Walmart.
Times... They are a-changing. |
Optimists invent airplanes,
Pessimists buy parachutes. |
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Rank: Member
Joined: 12/23/2003(UTC)
Posts: 909
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What entices me more about this article is the mention of the emerging industry as a result of this battle.
I would cash in all my chips for any manufacturer that is willing pay me to google all day because they're too lazy to do it themselves...LOL... |
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Rank: Member
Joined: 1/30/2008(UTC)
Posts: 215
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MAP has a place such as in the example Mitch gave. We had a supplier last year come to us AFTER they had done a recent price increase and indicate we needed to raise our prices on a few items. Keep in mind this isn't a loss leader type of thing. we're talking decent margins. As Matt said, I spent some time looking around and found out of the top 10 in our industry 70% were blatantly advertising prices way lower than ours. When I say not even close if the item was $30 they were advertising it at $20. Some were even violating rules about other more important procedures and policies that tie back to the overall manufacturer not wanting competition between channels. They didn't care and were out to obviously only protect their larger, bloated clients. Neither did we and we stopped selling their products early in the year.
Fast forward to now with word that their sales are down 7% this year while their biggest competitors are stable or growing slowly. At every show we went to this year there were rumblings of pulling their products from our competitors over the same thing. They won the battle but lost the war. The products they were complaining about probably make up about .000000000001% of the industry and far less than that in our sales, but in doing what they did they did lose a solid percentage of business in other products.
MAP is anti-competitive for non exclusive products and should be outlawed.
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Rank: Member
Joined: 12/23/2003(UTC)
Posts: 909
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On the flip side, I've been having a battle with a supplier for a client. This supplier is gung ho to get their catalog on the site, as are we. However, I check a few competitors and they practice something that we deem unethical.
This supplier is a direct importer and does not provide MSRP prices. Competitors list a $8.99 item (which is extremely consumable and purchased quite frequently) and state that the MSRP is $29.99.
I discussed this with the supplier that this devalues the quality of the product since the competitors are not stating that this is a closeout item, inventory reduction item, etc. Something we normally see when there is upwards of 70% savings.
The supplier responded that this is a marketing trick. I said "if that's the case, we're going to make the MSRP $49.99".
silence....LOL... |
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Rank: Member
Joined: 1/30/2008(UTC)
Posts: 215
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Matt one of the other major issues being missed by the MAP police force...
There are hundreds of entitities driving down prices and increasing competition through false storefronts. IE, the example you just gave...store A sells it at 9.99 and all products on similar margins, store B sells it at 8.99 and at similar margins, store A and store B are owned by the same people.
All of these companies enforcing MAP should also enforce a one store, one entity policy.
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Rank: Member
Joined: 1/10/2005(UTC)
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Our sales have dramatically gone down over MAP pricing. The biggest problem is getting the manufacturers to police it. Because we have a nice looking website, and these other stores do not, we get blamed first. We are a very small company. Not big by any means. Heck, im the only doing everything for the website except for customer service! Anyways, because of our looks, these other websites can slide on by because no one pays attention. Thats our biggest problem. We have to adhere to the MAP pricing, yet these small website dont, and or don't get policed.
Luckily we can advertise low prices with a customer specific password. But hat raises the question, who wants to "create an account" or "create a user id" to view low prices? Not the inter wall shopper that is simply looking for low prices, and that happens to sum up our industry pretty well.
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Rank: Member
Joined: 12/23/2003(UTC)
Posts: 909
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Unfortunately, mitch's signature sums up most of it....LOL.. |
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Rank: Member
Joined: 1/30/2008(UTC)
Posts: 215
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another ecommerce products was not what I said, i said store *****...silly system replaced it.
Bryan if you can demonstrate that you've notified the manufacturer repeatedly of others violating and they do not enforce it you can sue them. Just as an FYI.
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Rank: Member
Joined: 12/23/2003(UTC)
Posts: 909
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Originally Posted by: "HPros" 
Bryan if you can demonstrate that you've notified the manufacturer repeatedly of others violating and they do not enforce it you can sue them. Just as an FYI.
Under what context? We see this [violations] all the time, notify all the time. What can we say or how do we say it that legal action can be pursued? |
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Rank: Member
Joined: 1/10/2005(UTC)
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Was thanked: 1 time(s) in 1 post(s)
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yeah its a cat and mouse game for us. We catch people, then they adhere. A week later they change i back. We police it and tell the manufacturer. They adhere. a week later... I can keep on going on with this ;)
Pretty soon customer's wont see any prices online until they create an account. Boo.
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