In article , Trevor Wilson
wrote:


**Of course, I am not familiar with the law over there. I made the bold
assumption that your consumer laws were similar to ours. That means that
a product is generally advertised at the RRP (Recommended Retail Price).
Specific retailers may advertise at a lower price, if they wish. They
may also sell at any price they wish. The law forbids any kind of retail
price maintenance. Except for the following products (here in
Australia): Bose B&O Linn

These guys seem to have some kind of exemption. -

More than one, I'd suspect... :-)

Actually, I have mixed feelings about the 'maintained price and restricted
dealership' approach.

Many moons ago, Armstrong - along with most UK specialist HiFi makers -
used to have a selected chain of appointed dealers and would only let them
have sets if they were sold at the set price. This certainly limited
competition, so the drawback was the consumer could not openly 'shop
around' for the lowest price on a specific item they wanted.

The upside was control over the dealers which could lead to the maker
ensuring that dealers offerred good advice, warranty support, etc. Thus
dealers could compete in terms of quality of service as opposed to price.

Clearly, though, this was open to abuse, and could lead to problems.

In the end, companies like 'Comet' drove a coach-and-horses through all
this. The good news was that some makers could get *huge* orders from Comet
if they decided to feature an item. The bad news was that they often
demanded a lower wholesale price. This means they sometimes could sell (at
a profit) to the customer at a *lower* price than some other audio
specialist dealers could buy, wholesale, from the maker. In some cases
specialist dealers went into Comet to buy stock!

A potential problem makers worried about was that Comet and some other big
warehouses might effectively drive the specialists out of business. Then
the warehouse would essentially be the only market for buying the
equipment. This would mean the warehouse could tell the makers "You sell to
us at the wholesale price *we* decide, or you can't sell anything to
anyone." There were lots of behind the scenes worries and activities about
this back in the 1970's.

In at least one case I know of, an amplifier was sold by a warehouse at a
retail price *below* the wholesale price they were paying. The idea being
that anyone who bought the amp would also want speakers, etc. Bit like
sugar and milk being cheap in a supermarket. The 'loss leader'. However I
think this practice may now also be illegal in the UK/EU as it is
'predatory'. In part it is based upon the big retailer being able to take a
loss until the smaller competition is driven out of business. Then the
bigger retailer has a monopoly so can wind up the prices as much as they
like.

Older readers may remember lists of items in magazine ads with 'POA' beside
many of them in place of a stated price. This was because some makers would
only provide sets to a dealer who only *advertised* the recommended price.
If you went to the shop, or phoned them up, they could offer a 'low price'.
Makers ended up doing this as there was no way they could stop it in
practice! :-)

Slainte,

Jim

--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Audio Misc http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/AudioMisc/index.html
Armstrong Audio http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Audio/armstrong.html
Barbirolli Soc. http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/JBSoc/JBSoc.html