Reef crystals discontinued??

[Pntbll687]

You do understand that my issue is not with some playing by the rules and others not.
On that front I completely agree with you. Everyone should play by the rules.

My issue is with the rule itself. The map nonsense.

A manufacturer should sell its product at whatever cost it wants to the retailers or wholesalers. I fail to understand why they dictate how much retailers should sell it for.

It prevents retailers for giving out sales to consumers and that’s where we end up paying for it. And it helps retailers who don’t want to put things on sale and lose margin because they know every retailer is also selling for the same price. It’s no different than retailers agreeing to sell something for the same price in order to avoid competition which I believe is illegal.

Please know my frustration is not with Md or BRS.

You wanna know what's even crazier...

There are some companies that tell the distributors (wholesalers) what price they have to sell a product to a store for. No adjusting the price at all, and it's the same price from every wholesalers. I know, I'm in distribution sales.

You don't see it too much in aquatic items, but more in dog food and companion pet stuff.

 

[Crashjack]

MAP protects the manufacturer and the retailer. Theoretically, certain online retailers could get cheap warehouse space and operate with very low operating costs and not charge sales taxes, load-up on a product, and undercut everybody else resulting in a lot of other retailers no longer carrying the product. In this case, the manufacturer would be at the beckoned mercy of the very few retailers that still offered their product.

I don’t think MAP existed until online retailers became so prevalent. Brick and mortar stores would provide the face-to-face sales and product education to a customer and then the customer would walk out and purchase the product for less money from an online retailer which did nothing to earn the business and had a lot lower cost structure than the local store (partially because they didn’t have to provide those sales and product education services). Many a local fish, hobby, shoe, clothing, electronics, etc. store have gone out of business for this very reason.

 

[Crashjack]

Deleted due to duplicate post.

 

[LARedstickreefer]

I don’t care what the manufacturer thinks is fair. I’ll simply check out their competitors instead if their price is close.

You can’t stop capitalism.

 

[shred5]

You do understand that my issue is not with some playing by the rules and others not.
On that front I completely agree with you. Everyone should play by the rules.

My issue is with the rule itself. The map nonsense.

A manufacturer should sell its product at whatever cost it wants to the retailers or wholesalers. I fail to understand why they dictate how much retailers should sell it for.

It prevents retailers for giving out sales to consumers and that’s where we end up paying for it. And it helps retailers who don’t want to put things on sale and lose margin because they know every retailer is also selling for the same price. It’s no different than retailers agreeing to sell something for the same price in order to avoid competition which I believe is illegal.

Please know my frustration is not with Md or BRS.

It is done to make sure the small guy survives. If not the larger places sell at such a low price the smaller guy is out of business. Then prices go way up once the small guy is gone and no competition. Short term helps the consumer long term it hurts. It also helps the LFS.

It also happened because places like Walmart got so big and forced manufacturers to meet their demands or they would not sell the products. It forced manufacturers to cut quality to make a product for the price Walmart wanted in some cases.

We have the situation right now for the last few years where I live with Kroger/Picknsave. They move a store right next to competitor sell really cheap. They put the other store out of business and then they jack prices up or close the store. Predator practices.

I am not saying I agree with it but that is why.