Monkeyleg
Member.
I'm seeing a lot of manufacturers pressuring online retailers with Minimum Advertised Price policies ("MAP", for short). The manufacturer sets a certain price as "MAP", and retailers can't advertise a price that's lower than MAP. The retailer can charge less than MAP, but can't put the price where buyers can readily see it.
Crimson Trace is enforcing their MAP policy. They make online retailers require customers to click the Add to Cart button or something like that in order to see the below-MAP price. The price can't be advertised anywhere else, either.
Trijicon also has a pretty aggressive MAP policy.
With Crimson Trace, they allow retailers to put "add to cart to see our price", so the customer could see the price right away. Trijicon won't even allow the price to be shown in the shopping cart. That presents a couple of problems: customers can't see the price right away, nor can they see the price when they're buying.
All of the manufacturers who push these MAP policies cut off the offending retailers by putting them on a "no sell to" list, and sending that list to all distributors.
With Trijicon, if the retailer still doesn't comply, they hit him with the threat of a trademark infringement lawsuit, saying that the name "Trijicon" is trademarked, as are the names of their products. So, the retailer not only can't show the price, he can't say what it is he's selling.
There's not much doubt in my mind that retailers like Cabela's, Optics Planet and others who do mega-volume with the manufacturers are pushing those manufacturers to enforce MAP policies.
The result is that consumers are nervous about not seeing the price up front, and most won't try to find out what it is. Retail is a zero sum game, so the big outfits selling at MAP win the sales, and the consumers don't realize they could have saved a lot of money elsewhere. Sometimes the savings are hundreds of dollars.
This is all legal, which is mind-boggling.
Crimson Trace is enforcing their MAP policy. They make online retailers require customers to click the Add to Cart button or something like that in order to see the below-MAP price. The price can't be advertised anywhere else, either.
Trijicon also has a pretty aggressive MAP policy.
With Crimson Trace, they allow retailers to put "add to cart to see our price", so the customer could see the price right away. Trijicon won't even allow the price to be shown in the shopping cart. That presents a couple of problems: customers can't see the price right away, nor can they see the price when they're buying.
All of the manufacturers who push these MAP policies cut off the offending retailers by putting them on a "no sell to" list, and sending that list to all distributors.
With Trijicon, if the retailer still doesn't comply, they hit him with the threat of a trademark infringement lawsuit, saying that the name "Trijicon" is trademarked, as are the names of their products. So, the retailer not only can't show the price, he can't say what it is he's selling.
There's not much doubt in my mind that retailers like Cabela's, Optics Planet and others who do mega-volume with the manufacturers are pushing those manufacturers to enforce MAP policies.
The result is that consumers are nervous about not seeing the price up front, and most won't try to find out what it is. Retail is a zero sum game, so the big outfits selling at MAP win the sales, and the consumers don't realize they could have saved a lot of money elsewhere. Sometimes the savings are hundreds of dollars.
This is all legal, which is mind-boggling.