Minimum Advertised Price // Nitecore - what do you guys think?

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

Gotcha. Well, I guess I’m not a fan of any kind of price fixing. I mean, shouldn’t each vendor be allowed to choose how much profit he/she wants to make? Maybe it’s not that cut-and-dry; I haven’t really researched it myself. But I think that’s what it boils down to. Maybe the other vendors will complain until the manufacturer no longer supplies to that one, for fear of losing their other business. That sounds an awful lot like a mob mentality and it never works out well for anyone. My two bits there.

As far as what they did, that’s clearly wrong. The vendor (who presumably has some kind of MAP agreement) was not advertising any price. They were not contradicting any part of their contract because they did nothing. It was all a third party. Of course, as a consumer of that vendor, you don’t want them to suffer because of your actions, so you did what you had to in order to stop the bullying.

I don’t know how common price fixing is, but I infer that it’s a very common practice here, in a lot of areas. I’m wondering how Nitecore would fare when faced with those “extreme couponers” blogging ways to get their product for free, or even for a profit. I wonder how they would deal with any actual legal action if they did pull their line when a third party advertised a price lower than MAP. And I’m wishing that we, as consumers, could pull together enough to give them the “Wal Mart treatment” and force on them a maximum price for their products.

Again, just my two cents on it.

like i said before. the manufacturer sells them for x amount for y quantity. like the ea4. they sell them lots of 100-200 for $40 a piece. one company wants $69.99 for it to maximize profit per unit. the next company wants $47 a unit for faster return. nitecore still gets their $40. the company who is trying to almost double their profit gets their panties in a wad and complains to nitecore.
thats how i see it

nitecore, let them whine. if people want to sell them at little profit for themselves, so be it. quality light at a cheaper price will move more units faster. i know at $69.99, i probably would not have ended up owning an ea4.

^That was kind of my thoughts on this matter.
That it may not be just nitecore. After all nitecore still made the same profit.
Some other dealer with there panties in a wad saw the price and complained to nitecore which in return had to complain to craig.
As for my thoughts on MAP. Sure seems like price fixing to me.
If every manufacture had MAP’s then walmart probably wouldn’t be in business. You could just stop any where the particular item was sold and it would be the same price.
If you ever look at buying a STIHL product you will find that no matter what store or online seller (when you include shipping) you find the item you wish to purchase will be exactly the same price. If its on sale in one store its on sale in ever store. Its their policy with the seller. Stihl set’s the price.

Nitecore is quickly losing my recommendation. I had been pondering a few of their lights, but with all this price fixing baloney… no more Nitecore for me.

I’m a bit sad I already purchased a charger, and to think I actually suggested a friend get it too. (he did) Won’t do that again.

Nitecore: You have price fixed your way out of my future purchases.

Yup that would be one reason, they seem to be trying to build a quality image.

Another is this VERY simplistic example- you have three different retailers called A,B and C.
Each buys $5,000 worth of the same suppliers stock, none of them have any reseller pricing restrictions.

Seller A decides to sell all stock at cost or just above to generate interest in their business etc, and attract customers that might also purchase other brand items that do have profit for them, but they do lose money on the $5,000 purchase (taking into account losses in pay, warehousing, shipping etc overheads in running a business)

Sellers B and C now have little choice but to match or at least come close to seller A’s prices which means they also lose out, if they cannot make up these losses through other sales then it becomes less likely they will want to restock or deal with the suppliers products, knowing they take a gamble that they may not make enough profit to break even.

So us the buyers end up seeing less choice of places to buy, seller B and C might have a great reputation for service, shipping etc, but if they decide not to stock said items then we might only be left with seller A who has the worst reputation for shipping, returns service, especially if they’re only making $1 profit on an item they won’t care about end users as it’s numbers of sales…yada yada yada

So if Nitecore sets MAP’s for example, they are more likely to get their products into more resellers stores as there is some guarantee of resale, which in turn gives us more choice of places to order to receive things like better pre/post sales service, faster shipping and so on.

I don’t see this as ‘price fixing’, it’s simply to ensure a sustainable business model. I would hate to see them go the way of others and let the market gut their products meaning we suffer with possibly cost cutting in manufacturing and left to deal with shoddy resellers.

Wouldn’t stop me personally in the slightest buying another Nitecore product, apart from the faulty charger I got :bigsmile: - though the replacement works beautifully, was resonably priced and appeared (to my eyes) to be of a much higher feature set and quality than the current competition.

Ya but, the cheapest seller was the fastest and very trusted seller with great customer service.
I do get what your saying though. But I still believe competition is good thing for the buyer and seller ( helps keep them in check).

Yea that was just a blanket example, no loss of love meant or implied towards Illumination Supply!

Hello jmpaul320, first I would like to say that we do not harbor any ill will towards your aforementioned post. I would like to try to explain some things here. NiteCore is technically within their right to ask us to pull our public promotion of a pricing that is below their MAP. However, I believed this would only be the case if the dollar value was written in plaintext. The original banner with our promotion of the flashlight stated a xx% off. It did not state it was xx% off MSRP and I believed it was vague enough to avoid the MAP regulation. That, combined with the flashlight x for $xxx thread is what I believe prompted the complaints submitted by other retailers to Nitecore, who in turn contacted us. I also do not blame Nitecore for asking us to remove the price. If anything MAP protects us from other companies like FT offering prices so low that it would drive us out of business. In fact MAP has teeth because Nitecore can refuse to sell to a dealer or revoke their warranty clause. (Most manufacturers only honor warranty under authorized dealers.) This is one advantage IS has over other some other chinese companies of that sort.

Regards,
Calvin

Your arguing for the opposite of a competitive marketplace. If you want to be gouged then you are in the minority. No rational person would voluntarily run themselves out of business, a sale to bring in customers is not a lifetime commitment, and somehow i get flyers from the same businesses every week, none of them have run themselves out of business even through they all have these sales.
I know of more then a few people who actually argue for price fixing and monopolies, because its good for business, and anything good for business must be good for the economy. What happens when all the wealth is concentrated among a few individuals and most of society has no money?

So many things I want to say. Staying away from political discussions has forced me to erase about 4 different responses to this.

You may be broke, but you’ll have a middle-of-the-road flashlight, just like all the other cool kids.

price fixing is not restricted to the flashlight world, though i agree, perhaps best not to argue about it here

Are you suggesting that Charmin and Cottenelle are conspiring to fix the price of shat-paper?

I was never condoning monopolies and price fixing in the scope you’re implying.

Think I’ll bow out of this thread as my point seemed to be missed :Sp

it would never happen on a product so sacred 0:)

NiteCore/Sysmax was already on my shit list, they have now moved way up it. Trying to steal JETBeam’s brand and absolute 100% blatant copying of their products it’s obvious that they are classless liars and cheats. I will never buy a NiteCore/Sysmax product.

“Your arguing for the opposite of a competitive marketplace. If you want to be gouged then you are in the minority. No rational person would voluntarily run themselves out of business, a sale to bring in customers is not a lifetime commitment, and somehow i get flyers from the same businesses every week, none of them have run themselves out of business even through they all have these sales.
I know of more then a few people who actually argue for price fixing and monopolies, because its good for business, and anything good for business must be good for the economy. What happens when all the wealth is concentrated among a few individuals and most of society has no money?”
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Great rationale. I totally agree with you. Particularly the idea of wealth being concentrated amongst the few and the rest of the populace having no money.