"Jeff" wrote in message
om...
I have been searching hi and low for a good deal on a Rotel RCD-02 CD
player. I have lost count of how many websites I have checked out
but every site that sells the CD player sells it for £379.95. I
thought price fixing was illegal so what has happened to competition?

**They're just advertising it for the recommended retail price. SOP. I'm
quite certain that if you wave a fist full of cash at them, they'll do you a
better price.


--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au

In article , Trevor Wilson
wrote:

"Jeff" wrote in message
om...
I have been searching hi and low for a good deal on a Rotel RCD-02 CD
player. I have lost count of how many websites I have checked out
but every site that sells the CD player sells it for £379.95. I
thought price fixing was illegal so what has happened to competition?

**They're just advertising it for the recommended retail price. SOP. I'm
quite certain that if you wave a fist full of cash at them, they'll do
you a better price.

I'm certainly not a lawyer, so may be wrong about this. :-) However my
impression is that UK/EU law now forbids there to even *be* a "recommended
retail price". i.e. the view of the EU is that it is for each retailer to
decide what they charge and the maker (or wholesaler) should make no
'recommendation' in any form. The basis being that this is none of the
maker's business, and such recommendations impede 'free competition'.

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

"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...

I'm certainly not a lawyer, so may be wrong about this. :-)
However my
impression is that UK/EU law now forbids there to even *be* a
"recommended
retail price". i.e. the view of the EU is that it is for each
retailer to
decide what they charge and the maker (or wholesaler) should make no
'recommendation' in any form. The basis being that this is none of
the
maker's business, and such recommendations impede 'free
competition'.

There can be a 'recommended' price - books and magazines still have a
recommended price printed on the cover - but price fixing is now
generally illegal. This means there's nothing to stop a retailer
choosing to sell an item for any price they wish, irrespective of the
recommended price.

Until a few years ago it was legal for the
manufacturer/publisher/whatever to enforce the recommended price. The
last major bastion of this was the Net Book Agreement which was
withdrawn a couple of years ago

In article , Stimpy
wrote:
"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...

I'm certainly not a lawyer, so may be wrong about this. :-) However
my impression is that UK/EU law now forbids there to even *be* a
"recommended retail price". i.e. the view of the EU is that it is for
each retailer to decide what they charge and the maker (or wholesaler)
should make no 'recommendation' in any form. The basis being that this
is none of the maker's business, and such recommendations impede 'free
competition'.

There can be a 'recommended' price - books and magazines still have a
recommended price printed on the cover - but price fixing is now
generally illegal.

Yes, as you mention in terms of the old Net Book Agreement which made books
and magazine something of a 'special case' in the UK/EU. A follow-on is
that books and magazines can now have a 'cover price'. The point of this
nowdays, though, is *not* to legally force the retailer to sell at a fixed
price (as used to be the case in the UK for books long after 'Retail Price
Maintainace' was made illegal for most other products. The purpose is that
many publisher-author contracts pay the author on the basis of a set
percentage of the cover price per book sold. Thus it is as much for the
legal purposes relating to the author's income as to the price the consumer
pays. :-)

This means there's nothing to stop a retailer choosing to sell an item
for any price they wish, irrespective of the recommended price.

Until a few years ago it was legal for the manufacturer/ publisher/
whatever to enforce the recommended price. The last major bastion of
this was the Net Book Agreement which was withdrawn a couple of years ago

Indeed. Retailers can now sell the book for whatever price the decide. The
author *should* get the same amount irrespective unless there is a special
deal with the publisher covered by the author's contract details.

However, the 'cover price' as a recommended price only really applies to
books and mags in the UK these days. My understanding is that this is for
the copyright-related (and historic) purposes I've outlined. For most other
goods, I think the practice of even a set 'suggested price' can now be
ruled illegal. However, I'm an author, not a lawyer. :-)

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

"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...
In article , Trevor Wilson
wrote:

"Jeff" wrote in message
om...
I have been searching hi and low for a good deal on a Rotel RCD-02 CD
player. I have lost count of how many websites I have checked out
but every site that sells the CD player sells it for £379.95. I
thought price fixing was illegal so what has happened to competition?

**They're just advertising it for the recommended retail price. SOP. I'm
quite certain that if you wave a fist full of cash at them, they'll do
you a better price.

I'm certainly not a lawyer, so may be wrong about this. :-) However my
impression is that UK/EU law now forbids there to even *be* a "recommended
retail price". i.e. the view of the EU is that it is for each retailer to
decide what they charge and the maker (or wholesaler) should make no
'recommendation' in any form. The basis being that this is none of the
maker's business, and such recommendations impede 'free competition'.

**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. -


--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au

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