Same old story ! Once company becomes successful, small customers are not important anymore. :cowboy_hat_face: BTW. that reminds me of XTAR, this forum helped them to make a good reputation and apart of that 18700 battery/charger deal no further promotions were offered to us…
Is the minimum ad price a contract with suppliers or can the retailers tell the suppliers to jump in the lake.Or then the retailers would not b supplied with goods from the suppliers 
.It was meant to sound like this just to show how ridiculous it all is :Sp
i dont know what kind of agreements nitecore has with its vendors…. but it sounds something like this to me:
ill sell you 50 lights for $99 a piece
the msrp for these lights is $199
the map for these lights is $139
the seller would probably agree not to sell the light below 139 or risk not being resupplied
I think it's not as simple as it looks. I believe they (manufacturers), enter into agreements with larger retailers, that they will freeze the price, so those retailers can compete. It's a lot more involved than the average person gets to see.
Bottom line I don't like price fixing, no matter how compelling the reasons. Canon used to do that with their photographic equipment, to protect the big retailers. It didn't work and they gave up. They gave up because they simply realized that they were loosing millions and millions of dollars, because they would not sell at a lower price, to the Wal-Marts of the world.
In a forum like this, Nitecore can go to hell, thinking that they can control what we say and I believe they will probably realize that by the time this is through.
i seriously hope we get some kind of a response from them
i doubt it, but i like to be surprised…
Nitecore is doing nothing wrong IMO.
If a retailer enters into an agreement with distributor that includes a MAP, then clearly that retailer knows upfront what is required of them. If said retailer decides to break that agreement then I see no reason why a company like Nitecore shouldn’t pull them up on it.
If a retailer does not like a MAP, they don’t have to stock the product, simple as that.
MAP’s in general are there to protect a brand and all retailers of that brand/product from being price r**d, for certain products it would be the end of them if margins kept getting cut to the point where most retailers dropped the product due to not being competitive, bad for us also as this can lead to no competition and prices can go up…
The other advantage is if certain retailers are (very roughly in general here…) able to gaurantee at least a stable profit margin then that leads them to want to champion that brand, meaning better service for us etc etc. Also the manufacturer should be able invest more into R&D which should mean higher quality products.
I realise this varys greatly across industries and can work to the average consumers detriment (eg Canon and big retailers), but for the most part is part of running a business.
I have no affiliation with Nitecore, and the only product of theirs I’ve owned was an Intellicharger which arrived DOA lol, however I appreciate that they are trying to provide a product a step above the usual cheap crap pumped out, accepted, and lapped up by todays consumers. Sure they may not get it right all the time, but compared to some it seems they are trying to be a bit more professional?
I seem to remember Sunwayman posting their “Regional Sales Policy and Retail Price” on CPF - post #42 a year ago, which was basically a price fix policy, that seemed very odd to most Europeans, where such things are frowned upon. Indeed, there are huge fines available to Regulators (up to 10% of turnover).
I just find it funny that Nitecore are so brazen about it - Fasttech even published their threats. I’m pretty sure many light manufacturers have a similar policy, but most are more subtle, or, maybe, have better leverage over their dealers. The fact is that they don’t actually see the problem - certainly Sunwayman didn’t “get it”.
Bottom line for me is that it happens, it isn’t good for consumers, but no action will be taken by regulators because the market isn’t big enough (and enforcement impractical).
Was looking at the TM 26’s. Think I’ll just look at some others. While I understand both sides of the discussion. Just not into Nitecore & even a bit of controversy just puts me off these days. Especially when it enters BLF.
Am i wrong that the retailer pays for the product before selling it, so if they sell at a loss, nitecore would still get the agreed upon price?
maybe FT and IS should say whether or not they had agreed to a limit to how low they sell them before nitecore came bullying them. when the FT incident happened, it seemed like FT was unaware of the price fix. which would lead me to believe that certain retailers are fixing the price
In the UK we have RRP (recommended retail price), so the manufacturer/distributor can say to a retailer: you can buy item X for £50 and we recommend a sale price of £100. Most retailers stick to that or £99.99. But the retailer can sell for what he wants, its just that if other retailers complain then the retailer is unlikely to get any more stock from the manufacturer/distributor.
Price fixing in Europe tends to get the Manufacturers arse kicked.
Talking of which every item has a personal A.R.S.E : Acceptable Retail Sales Envelope - $300 is way out of my envelope
I think you were right to take down your post, Illumination Supply would probably get aggravation from Nitecore. In the future however you could do what kreisler has done in the past, if someone express’s an interest in a discount price PM them details. There is nothing retailer or manufacturer can do about that.
Normally yes
It’s been a long time since I looked at competition law, but RRP is supposed to be just that - recommended. If the competition regulators find evidence that retailers are being discriminated against because they “breach” a supposed agreement to sell at a certain price , then the manufacturer might find life very difficult.
The legal theory in Europe is simple - manufacturers cannot ask retailers to sell at any particular price. And really, what is the problem?
FMS’s argument - that if the retailer doesn’t like the “agreement” to fix prices they can walk away, is completely bogus, and has been used for years to artificially inflate prices. Manufacturers use all sorts of spurious arguments - the sellers don’t understand the complexities of selling their product (from jeans to beans) - that have been rejected by the European courts over the years.
As I said earlier, nothing much will happen, so vote with your feet (and wallet) if you don’t like it.
But I agree with you that the more practical route might be the “Kreisler Method” (hey, I like that as a concept) -
In that case i assume nitecore is looking to maintain their cachet
Alternatives:
Make it a shark infested lake, or a hike in the Sahara followed by a chilled out in a snowstorm in Siberia.
Anyway, priced it too high and nitecore should self destruct. No ill will here. It’s market forces at work.
I say vote with your dollars. It will be extremely telling when they are on the receiving end.
I’m a little torn here. And maybe confused. Is the problem that the MAP exists, or that they came after the vendor when a third party advertised a lower price?
Or both?
MAP is a weird concept.
Evidently it’s okay for a retailer to advertise that they have a promo code for a particular item that will provide a certain percentage discount as long as they don’t state what the final price will be.
I’ve noticed that several well-known flashlight merchants (especially during Black Friday, etc.) have been doing this for years without having any supply problems. I mean, really, who’s being fooled by this scheme?
apparently it increases profits
They are really two separate issues…
MAP which i wanted to throw out there to get other members viewpoints on…
And second, nitecores actions