MAP or No MAP ? Let your voice be heard

Let’s go back to the original premise of this thread, and I will add why it came about: FT publishes a net price of about $49 for its SWM D40A. Some are not comfortable with the announcement for the possible backlash of the MAP thing. To simplify matters, again, like what happened to the Crelant and Fenix brands, do we allow now, from the buyer’s perspective, any manufacturer/wholeseller to put the brakes again?

Why can’t they just allow the retailer to publish whatever price he intends, instead of having go through coupon codes, etc. of which not all of us has information about? If after the coupon code the final amount received by the seller is the same, with or without the MAP, what then is the logic of this MAP thing?

In my eyes, its like telling the retailer. “Ok you can give a few people a discounted price. Just don’t tell everyone or we will come for you.”

Correct. +1

This is just one example, but it’s a real example. Many sellers have policies for matching the lowest advertised price.

And you wouldn’t believe the kind of sh*t some customers pull in order to get a seller to price match.

Back in the day, Costco/Priceclub and some other warehouse stores wouldn’t let you photograph their prices. Part of it was so that customers wouldn’t take photos of price tags, claim that that counted as “advertised prices”, and use them to get other sellers to price match (it was easier to enforce back then because no one had camera phones) but people tried to do it anyway.

I’m sure people have taken prices discussed in this forum and tried to get sellers to match also.

The worst thing about customers like that is that when you tell them to go buy the item from the other place, they hem and haw and make some excuse why they want to buy it from you. And it’s usually stuff like we’re closer to them or we have better customer service or whatever. Those are value added things and they wonder why we charge more.

Customers are crazy sometimes.

thats exactly what happened with crelant and madecov... the actual posts involving this have been deleted, so no proof... but i followed that thread from the beginning because one i like mark hes a good seller, and two i liked crelant products... then drama because people had to push to try and get a US retailer to try and match a china retailers price... it cant happen when its a chinese product and a chinese retailer. just not possible, too much overhead.

MAP is not price fixing. Price fixing is done with manufacturers sit down together and decide the price together, this is illegal because it is not fair to consumer like us. MAP is done with the manufacturer judging base on their cost, market competition, etc. Because there are millions of consumers, it won’t happen that everyone sit down together and decide the price a product should sell, and it is difficult to decide, so we let market force decide the price.

Why MAP?
My understanding is it is to protect small or medium size seller. Imagine seller A is super rich and can buy 100 flashlight for stock while other sellers can only buy 20 flashlight for stock. Because of higher quantity, seller A ask for more discount let’s say 15 percents. So without MAP, seller A can always sell at price lower than other sellers. Other sellers will find it hard to sell and at the end, we have fewer sellers. Fewer sellers mean no good to buyer.
But is FT very rich compare to other sellers? I am not sure about it. FT strategy might be to sell more with lower profit margin. To the eyes of other sellers, that will force them to lower price either and reduce their margin. And if manufacturer doesn’t step in, these sellers will not order from manufacturer if they have a lot of stock to clear. I think FT should just follow MAP and let the informed buyer to applied the right coupon code.

At the end, I think MAP is good for both seller and buyer. It is not legal term of price fixing as claimed because the price is still negotiable through emails or coupon code applied. FT should cooperate with manufacturer. And I wish to buy Fenix or Crelant from them.

Haha… I did not know about that.

If people want to know reasons why MAP exists, there’s one.

Blame idiot customers.

I think it is fair to everyone. If a buyer do more research and found a coupon, he/she deserve some discount. It is like if someone spend more time and effort to compare price of product in different shops, then he can buy it at lower price.

tatasal, I think MAP is good. The bad one is manufacturer controlled price. Where if a seller is found selling below price manufacturer has set, he will be out.
I don’t know what is that called, if it is called MCP, it is much worse than MAP if you think MAP is bad.

you can’t be serious, a customer buys a product based on many factors, and if people consider price to be the determinant then you would call them idiot customers?
How many people have stable jobs, or make a living wage? How many have disposable income because they have family or healthcare obligations? How many know the profit margin that a retailer is making because they know the wholesale price of the item, the retailers employee costs, overhead, utility costs, taxes and rent?

All you see is the final sale price, can you tell me Cree’s margin on a single XM-L2 U2 chip?

I say list the MAP price with the understanding a discount of 10-15-20% can be had through a code like they did with the Nitecore items. = happy buyer, happy seller and happy manufacturer. As long as you list the price they say is least amount you can sell item as a “special” or on sale or how ever you want to word it.

Bort, you took my comment completely out of context. There’s obviously nothing wrong with getting a good deal.

“Idiot customers” were people who took a price disclosed in a forum post and tried to get a US seller to price match a Chinese seller. Why didn’t they just buy it from the Chinese seller? Why? Because they are idiots… not that there’s anything wrong with that per se.

I’m not sure how this part relates to the first or even what point you are trying to make. But I just want to point out that flashlights, at least of the kind that gets discussed here, are non-essential goods. These are essentially luxury items. There is no valid argument that can be made that these flashlights SHOULD cost less.

I dont like when certain companies try to enforce MAP onto sellers, for example the way NiteCore did with FastTech!

Other than that, whats the point of MAP? Creating false perception in the market that your product is somehow magically superior to the competition just because of premium price? Knowing that seller actually paid the same for your product and simply is unable to lower the price to gain more sales=more profit is just wishful thinking.
But it looks like it works, doesnt it?

So luxury should cost more then essentials, is that the argument?

There are few items that one can claim cannot be essential to somebody, i can agree that a $2000 handbag does not resemble an essential item, but say one does security work in dark alleys or buildings, a flashlight could mean the difference between life and death. Not essential (in this context)?

Who gets to decide what is or is not essential, and one of the tenets of capitalism is that competitiveness should lead to innovation and lower prices for consumers, should this be restricted to ‘essential’ items.

i have a stable job... living wage? thats questionable when i have two kids and a fiance i am making a priority to put threw collage...

i know that a lot of us retailers have a fairly high overhead. i also know its easier for cinese retailers to get the items from chinese manufactures... but....

say fasttech was allowed to buy, lets say the 7g5cs, for the same price per piece as a us dealer.. lets call that $35 a piece for 100 pieces. then they decide to charge $55. they out sell all other dealers by $40 or so. they corner the market on that 7g5cs. they then decide to jack the price up to $125. first of all, the other dealers will have stock that they also bought at $35 a piece. crelant will also still be selling that same piece at $35 a piece for 100 pieces. so, will not be hard to keep the price from being jacked up by the dealer trying to corner the market on the 7g5cs.

the us dealers may have to pay shipping and taxes on the item, but will still be able to still charge their initial price of $95, or even less if they still have stock to clear out.

its not like a lot of these flashlights are limited runs by one person running a lathe.

just silly thinking that one chinese seller trying to sell as many pieces at the best price will be able to corner the marked and jack prices up to an unreasonable amount

You miss one thing here.
Using your example, when FT sold all the 100 pieces, there are new models of Crelant coming out. Very few will buy 7g5cs at that time as technology advanced. Those with old stock of 7g5cs very unlikely to order new flashlights from Crelant as they have old stock to clear. In long terms, many small or medium seller will be forced out of business or at least not carrying Crelant anymore because it is too risky for them to stock Crelant again. And sellers don’t like to stock low profit margin brand, too high risk for them if they are not full of cash to sustain their business.

At the end, only one or two or three sellers carrying Crelant. So the price will not be competitive anymore. 3 sellers will be easier do price fixing illegally, and it can’t be detected most of the time. We have law against price fixing, but it doesn’t mean sellers are not doing it at the back.

Fasttech is Not Robin Hood. Lowering the price on something that everyone else is keeping MAP on, is done for only one reason. To corner the market long enough to sell off all your stock, instead of it being bought somewhere else. That is Not Robin Hood. They are NOT doing it for buyers, or to be Nice Guys. They are doing it for the Money. Don't ever doubt their goal. They have one goal, to make money, just like every other seller in the world and they want to make as much as they can, as fast as they can. They are going for volume, not dollars per, but that is just a quick and dirty goal, not long range and with no concern for anyone else other than themselves. Simple as that, but people don't like to see it that way.

When I was a secret agent a good flashlight was essential, even life saving, so was my $2000 bag used to carry my ‘tools’, however my employers paid for these 0:)

Good point, but then would the other retailers really want to order more stock to have say fastech then undercut them again.

monopoly a la walmart
and you pointed out another way to corner the market, government policies and involvement (tax perks, subsidies, lobbying, laws)

but how many people will spend $125 for the latest and greatest with 10% more output, when they can get the older model from the US 10x faster for $70? look at madecov, he sells his older models out at basically his cost. there is no chance someone like fasttech could corner the market and jack the prices up to unbelievable prices. there are other reputable chinese dealers also selling crelant that will keep the market fair

A luxury is something you can forgo. It doesn’t necessarily have to cost more; it can cost whatever the seller wants to charge. Whatever it is, if you don’t want to pay you don’t have to. Because it’s something you can easily forgo.

Now I’m not saying that all flashlights are luxury items. Flashlights are essential to many people for work, safety, and daily living. But there are plenty of affordable flashlights out there. Even high powered flashlights. I’m just saying that the Nitecores, Fenixes, Crelants, etc that are the topic of the MAP conversation are basically non-essential items. No one needs an expensive name brand flashlight. There are plenty of affordable no name alternatives that do the job just fine.

The flip side to this is, who are you to tell a business how much profit they should make? Are you going to tell madecov how much money he should make? or anyone else? That’s up to them, not you.