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.
The only map I want is when I’m taking a trip. :bigsmile:
If newer generation has only 10% more output without other new attractive features, then you are right. But the trend is manufacturers are all going to innovate to put more features into their product. I see old product always get sold at clearance price. Unless that old product has collectible value in it.
If one brand is taking longer time for seller to get back their money with no guarantee, seller will eventually just carrying brand that sell faster or somehow protected by MAP.
+1
thanks for agreeing with what i said earlier 8)
Some of what was said here reminds me of the folks that bitch about Walmart and saying they killed the mom and pop stores or the middle man or what have you. But I’d bet you money that most people shop at Walmart here in the US. I love Walmart. They sure beat Target, Kmart and Sears. The last 2 probably won’t be around much longer due to there bad customer service and not keeping up with competitive prices. The KMart store here is always dirty. Very few people shop there anymore.
The whole point I’m trying to say is you give people great prices you won’t have to worry about people shopping with you.
My parents used to own a supermarket. On and off for 30 years I helped run it when I could and when they needed vacations or when they were I’ll I would manage it. Sometimes for a year or two at a time. One of the very best suppliers we had pre-marked all their products. We had a choice, we could stock their products or give that shelf space to someone else. But let me tell you this. They had the best products and the best prices for our customers and we still had a nice profit margin on their products. So as the years went on they got more and more shelf space. If they didn’t have products that our customers wanted at a price they wanted and at a price we wanted to sell them for they wouldn’t have stayed in business long. They sold stuff like chips, crackers, cookies, and dairy products like cheese and things like that.
They offered me a job as their district sales rep about 12 years ago. To humor them and out of curiosity I went down to their warehouse in Detroit. Big place in the worst part of town, the place was behind barbed wire, I kid you not. But it was close to the expressway and I’ll bet that their taxes were low. They offered me 40 grand a year starting out with full benefits and bonuses based on sales. Not bad for driving around BSing with store owners and managers most of whom I already knew.
My point is that it works well for everyone involved if it’s done properly and no it’s not price fixing because there are plenty of other suppliers who would love to take over that shelf space and sell similar products. They just did it better. We were happy and so were our customers.
So remember this. If you don’t like the product, price or service don’t buy it. The company will soon have to either offer a better product or a better price. It’s not like there is no competition among flashlight manufacturers.
My statement does not agree with anything you’ve said above.
in way to many words i have been saying that businesses should not be held to a MAP, which would agree with what you said
Wallmart killed mom and pop stores because of how they could force wholesalers to give them deals. For instance Coke and Pepsi used to offer mom and pop stores the same sales as any other store. But the district managers got paid based on volume sales and total shelf space. So they would kiss Walmart’s backside so they could get the volume up and put up huge displays. The managers stopped giving mom and pop stores deals because they also had to keep making a profit. So mom and pop had to charge more because they no longer got the weekly or monthly sales that were now only being offered to Walmart. By the way Coke and Pepsi also price fix. You can’t sell singles for less than what they tell you to. In fact you have to buy singles by the case to stock your coolers with. If they catch you breaking apart 30 packs they threaten to pull their coolers out of your store. Often I could go to Walmart and buy Coke or Pepsi cheaper than our wholesalers would sell it to us. The same was true for many products. We were an IGA that supposedly was a group of individual owners who banded together to get group pricing. Well not after Walmart came along.
If you want to complain about anything it should be complaining about wholesalers who give one price to one store and refuse to give the same price to others. I know it’s legal because they say it’s bulk pricing, but it’s still driving out small businesses all over America.
again, i didn’t say the robin hood concept is what i believe in, its just an idea i threw out there, but all businesses are out to make money, and some can get far more underhanded then selling below MAP, market manipulation, deceptive advertising, creating a market, playing on peoples fears, inventing fears, kickbacks or ‘gifts’ (ask any doctor what they get from drug companies), selling substandard or dangerous products, corruption and bribes, organized crime, etc etc etc.
free market economics is ill equipped to deal with these, even if it practically revered as a religion by many.
That’s not what I said. I said that you, an outside party, should not tell sellers how much profit they should make.
MAP is an agreement between a manufacturer and its retail partners. You, as an outside party, should not be involved in their agreement. Whatever they agree to among themselves, as long as it is legal, is up to them.
I am not involved, i don’t own a company that has any MAP agreements signed, nor am i a legal adviser to such a corporation. My opinion is that MAP is a bad idea, and i can give reasons why, but obviously none of them are legally binding, so feel free to ignore them.
Every company have their own strategy (brand image, wider distribution point etc.), as long as it’s legal then no problem.
MAP have some good points, but setting too high MAP price and force everybody to sell it on that price (price fixing) is not good at all, at least for me as end buyer 
There’re many things to consider, ie. tax, shipping cost, that make supplier in other areas usually can’t be as competitive as seller in manufacture’s area.
I don’t think China sellers price can beat US sellers for Maglite or Eagletac or other US products either, if they can then must be something wrong there and vice versa.
Although look unfair but it’s natural thing, especially when regulator have different policy/doing nothing to support their products which affecting global competitiveness, shipping cost for example.
Calvin from IS made straight and clear answer about this when asked to matching the price from certain supplier (which imo is not wise to asked about this to a seller in his selling thread).
So for me, no problem with MAP, it’s their discretion, I ’ll buy only if I think the price is right (subjective).
Just hoping more good flashlights with more reasonable price come up. If their market share is taken, may be some brands will lower their price or MAP or whatever they called it. Well, on that time, possibly my budget already used up for other flashlights.
Very nicely said and to the point.
I construe MAP as price fixing.
MAP won’t work as flashlights are not state of the art or high tech stuff like an i-phone, and not much R&D needed.
They have no icon or hip up status like the i-product.
Just slap a driver with the latest led in a host and these are good to go.
Why pay manufacturing asking price, esp. when they are locking up the head with locktite and you can’t mod them for these so called branded lights.
If not for the flashlight community, they would all be going for a song.
In China, everything is cheap and cheaply made.
A piece of metal won’t do any good for the manufacturers, if it is sitting in their warehouses.
Just hold your ground and see what happens.
lol, true and only in case you dont know where youre going :D!
I know all about Walmart very well. And I know how they can demand price decreases every year. And I was’nt complaining one bit about Walmart. They have saved me hundreds if not thousands of dollars over the years shopping with them.
But let’s get back to the topic at hand.
Folks here at BLF are here because they are budget minded for the most part when it comes to buying good quality flashlights at the best lowest possible prices they can. Most folks here shop for the lowest price they can possibly find before buying a flashlight. MAP to me is about as good as suggested retail prices when most folks that are smart are’nt going to pay retail pricing especially since most budget flashlights of non name brands don’t really have what I call a suggested retail price to begin with. So the websites that have the best pricing is going to get the most customers. It’s that simple. The same goes for when these flashlight vendors offer huge sales. Look how much attention Wallbuys got on here on their last big sale where they only had like 3 of each item or less. Folks went crazy over trying to get a great deal that don’t come around very often like that. That is what it’s all about. Finding the best deals at the best price is what we live for.