Originally posted by: Wingznut
Originally posted by: Walruslord
Originally posted by: Bop
Originally posted by: larciel
nice,
but why does da heck 'price too low we can't show it' sign there,.. it's retail $299.99
its an amazon.com ploy to get you to add it to your shopping cart. Sneaky, eh?
No its not, conspiracy-man. Manufacturers set a "Lowest Advertised Price" restriction on goods that merchants will have to abide by in order to carry their goods and get them for large volume prices. Brick and mortar stores can get around this by having the price only on the shelf, but online retailers can not, as even listing the price online is considered advertising by most laws. They got around this by letting you view the price when you add it to your cart, as this is like "picking it up at the store." The consumer is benifiting by this, because otherwise you would never get it for this price online from big retailers, you would have to trust the
www.flybynightstorewithalowpriceonprcewatch.com for all your shopping needs.
Umm.. Ok, but how does this explain that the vast majority of online retailers don't have a problem posting the price? And that $299 is the same price that EVERYONE else is selling it for, including B&M stores?
The legal term is a MAP, and the agreement
may vary from retailer to retailer, but normally doesn't. It may not even apply to retailers that do not buy at certain bulk rates.
Example of disclaimer at a small web site.
http://www.penncamera.com/cfm/info/help.cfm
Academic Paper on the Subject
http://netec.mcc.ac.uk/BibEc/data/Articles/tprjemstrv:7:y:1998:i:4:p:647-68.html
.
Abstract:
This paper examines minimum advertised price (MAP), a vertical restraint that is observed in manufacturer-retailer interactions. Under MAP, the manufacturer announces that it will reimburse retailers for a fraction of their advertising expenditures if retailers do not advertise the product at below a specified price. MAP can be considered a combination of resale price maintenance (RPM) and a cooperative advertising subsidy. Current antitrust law treats RPM as illegal per se, whereas MAP is judged according to a rule of reason. A framework is presented within which neither a minimum retail price nor a cooperative advertising subsidy is individually sufficient to enable maximization of profits in the complete manufacturer-retailer structure, but the two instruments together are. MAP is therefore a sufficient instrument for the maximization of joint profits. We argue that MAP can also be designed as a second-best instrument that replicates RPM. Copyright 1998 by MIT Press.
Some Legal analysis, search for "minimum"
http://www.ftc.gov/os/2000/05/mapanalysis.htm
^ Part of the reason the clas action suit against the 5 big music compaines was brought was due to Minimum Advertized Price (MAP) issues. THey were doing illegal things with the MAP policy.
Anyway, I just get tired of people who don't understand the way the business and law world works, and so they immediately assume that it is some black helicopterish/capitalistic greedy website trying to screw the people over. Someone call slashdot! The jist of it is: looking at an item in your shopping cart is NOT advertising, whereas listing that price on the website is. Just like how CompUSA can sell the thing below MAP if they only have the price in the store, and not on the weekly flyer's front page.
BTW, this is a pretty hot deal