Supreme Court upholds legality of manufacturers requiring MAP and MARP.

[jacksatlanta]

http://www.twice.com/article/CA6456240.html

In case anyone missed this, on June 28, 2007 the supreme court ruled that Manufacturers can legally require "authorized dealers" to advertise the manufacturers products at a minimum advertised price, and require a minimum resale price.

I'm curious do you all feel this will cause scuba equipment prices to go up overall, stay about the same, or will the internet continue to lower the cost of gear to everyone?

 

[jviehe]

http://www.twice.com/article/CA6456240.html

In case anyone missed this, on June 28, 2007 the supreme court ruled that Manufacturers can legally require "authorized dealers" to advertise the manufacturers products at a minimum advertised price, and require a minimum resale price.

I'm curious do you all feel this will cause scuba equipment prices to go up overall, stay about the same, or will the internet continue to lower the cost of gear to everyone?

Score one for freedom! Prices can only go down as competition increases.

 

[O2BBubbleFree]

http://www.twice.com/article/CA6456240.html

In case anyone missed this, on June 28, 2007 the supreme court ruled that Manufacturers can legally require "authorized dealers" to advertise the manufacturers products at a minimum advertised price, and require a minimum resale price.

I'm curious do you all feel this will cause scuba equipment prices to go up overall, stay about the same, or will the internet continue to lower the cost of gear to everyone?

Since the decision basically says that what they are already doing is legal, why would anything change?

 

[daniel f aleman]

One change would be that with increased internet sales competition, local LDSs may drop lines that have high MAPs as compared to other similar brands that are priced lower and that are more widely available.

 

[vladimir]

Score one for freedom! Prices can only go down as competition increases.

We all like freedom. In this case, as I understand it, the court has given manufacturers freedom from the most rigid rules of anti-trust law (which prohibits anti-competitive behavior) and raised the bar for proving an anti-trust violation. It is hard to see how allowing manufacturers to enforce a minimum price will increase competition and lower prices. What it will do, perhaps, is allow more innovation in marketing and service.

 

[PhilEllis]

http://www.twice.com/article/CA6456240.html

In case anyone missed this, on June 28, 2007 the supreme court ruled that Manufacturers can legally require "authorized dealers" to advertise the manufacturers products at a minimum advertised price, and require a minimum resale price.

I'm curious do you all feel this will cause scuba equipment prices to go up overall, stay about the same, or will the internet continue to lower the cost of gear to everyone?

That is an interesting article in This Week in Consumer Electronics. I will assume that the writer of this article simply made a mistake when referring to a "MAP" price ruling. You see, Minimum Advertised Price policies have ALWAY been completely legal. The case they are talking about Leegin v PSKS only deals with vertical price maintenance. It has NOTHING to do with Minimum Advertised Prices.

Furthermore, the Supreme Court ruling in Leegin v PSKS does not make vertical price control andy more "legal" or "illegal" than it ever was. It simply changes the standard that a court must apply when attempting to determine if a particular price maintenance policy is legal or illegal.

If anyone can find anything about MAP prices in Leegin v PSKS, please let me know. I would love to know where I have misread this opinion. Thanks.

Phil Ellis

 

[Divin' Dave]

Seems like a victory for bricks and mortar marketing over internet sales. Just another sign of the corporatocracy of America. The minute you throw something into your trash and put it on the curb, it's public property, but the corporations now keep a form of ownership thru price control even after the item has been purchased from them and left their property (not that I'm implying their products are trash, just how the definition of ownership has been adjusted conveniently in favor of the corporations). So it's a victory for the corporations and less competition for the comsumers. Anyone surprised?

 

[jacksatlanta]

While this case did not really address MAP policies, it does address minimum resale pricing, and with the affirmation of a Mfg's right to set Minimum resale prices it this case has essentially said that a reseller will now have a MAP because the lowest price that will now be able to be advertised is the Mfg's minimum resale price. With this case MAP and MRP become essentially the same thing. My question is in an industry as specialized and as small as the Scuba industry is, do you think the Mfg's will now use this ruling to "force" prices up as a whole and now that they have a court ruling backing them become more aggresive with dealers selling below the Mfg's MRP or will prices go down as and the market segment into MRP Mfg's and non MRP Mfg's or will everything stay the same? I ask and wonder because it seems everday more Mfg's, even 2nd tier Mfg's are supporting MAP and MRP policies.

 

[MikeFerrara]

The manufactureres and wholesalers can't tell the reatailer what to sell for. It may seem like semantics but what they do is refuse to sell the retailer more product if they don't sell for what the manufacturer wants them to. The manufacturer has the right to sell to who they please.

Small retailers often get pushed around by suppliers. Most dive shops are small and when I owned one I felt like I was an employee of the manufacturers and the agencies. I may have owned the place but I sure didn't have much room to decide how I wanted to run it.

By contrast look at the large retailers. They are in a position to push the supplier around. I'll bet Walleymart wouldn't take the kind of crap that scubapoo or aquadung rams down the throat of a little dive shop. It's all a matter of clout. With more online retailers, more competition and maybe some bigger retailers in the game, the wholesalers will have less power. We need the dog wagging the tail.

 

[redacted]

What this does is insures a bright future for Leisurepro at the expense of authorized retailers who must abide by MARP for those mfgrs that use such anti-consumer policies.