Industry News
Well, It looks like there's always interesting things happening.
MMR Magazine reported that the FTC is investigating the industry's MAP (minimum advertised price) policy that many manufacturer's have adopted. Subpeonas have been issued and we'll see what, if anything, turns up with the investigating.
One of my suppliers informed me last week that they have an MSP policy...(minimum selling price). Now if the FTC is going to get into price fixing investigations I think MSP is a target that is just to big to ignore. MAP sets a minimum advertised price but a retailer can still sell inventory at whatever price they want. After all, if you own the inventory, bought and paid for...why should the supplier tell you what you can advertise and sell it for. How can an MSP price policy even exist in America???? Even as a retailer, if I bought it and own it, how can they dictate how much or little I can sell it for?
Well, I think the industry is in dire straits that they are willing to do anything to keep dealers from going under from the extreme pricing pressures of the big box retailers. It's at the point where the manufacturers are struggling in the instrument world because their support of the collapsing big box mentality into bankruptcy has practically taken them down as well. And now they want to attempt to price fix to save themselves and dealers.
Well one thing's for sure...change has been the name of the game over the last several years. It's always tough to predict where it will end up, but status quo techniques are proven failures. So, the way I see it, there will either be huge excitement in the industry with new concepts or bitter failures. I think we'll probably continue to see a bit of both for a while.
Next time....a review of my recent discussions on instrument gimick stuff: Fakes frauds, or genius!
MMR Magazine reported that the FTC is investigating the industry's MAP (minimum advertised price) policy that many manufacturer's have adopted. Subpeonas have been issued and we'll see what, if anything, turns up with the investigating.
One of my suppliers informed me last week that they have an MSP policy...(minimum selling price). Now if the FTC is going to get into price fixing investigations I think MSP is a target that is just to big to ignore. MAP sets a minimum advertised price but a retailer can still sell inventory at whatever price they want. After all, if you own the inventory, bought and paid for...why should the supplier tell you what you can advertise and sell it for. How can an MSP price policy even exist in America???? Even as a retailer, if I bought it and own it, how can they dictate how much or little I can sell it for?
Well, I think the industry is in dire straits that they are willing to do anything to keep dealers from going under from the extreme pricing pressures of the big box retailers. It's at the point where the manufacturers are struggling in the instrument world because their support of the collapsing big box mentality into bankruptcy has practically taken them down as well. And now they want to attempt to price fix to save themselves and dealers.
Well one thing's for sure...change has been the name of the game over the last several years. It's always tough to predict where it will end up, but status quo techniques are proven failures. So, the way I see it, there will either be huge excitement in the industry with new concepts or bitter failures. I think we'll probably continue to see a bit of both for a while.
Next time....a review of my recent discussions on instrument gimick stuff: Fakes frauds, or genius!
2007-04-02 21:24:30 GMT
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