You’re treading on a sensitive subject. :evil:
Nuff said.
I think people can read the responses to your post, and see that your politics led you to make that misleading and inaccurate post, you should have pointed out that it was just your own personal view, about Britain’s second most popular grocery store, which is owned by Walmart.
Maybe one day we will come to our senses
That when we’ll see there’s no difference in our differences
Then we can mend those broken fences and get along
So lets get along, any other way just has to be wrong
Its not there world or my world, cause its our world
So lets get along and learn to live in peace
So, if MAP is accepted as being the same as Retail Price Maintenance, this paper clearly supports what the OP says about how MAP protects competition.
*emphasis mine
Whatever else you believe about MAP, if it protects competition, isn’t that at least one good thing that can be said about it?
Sharpie, only you could, or would, confuse an individual pointing out your anti-Americanism, with the United States Government accusing you of being anti-American and compare America to the Soviet Union.
Thanks for sharing with us with such passion, where you prefer to buy your groceries, and why you resent so much, so many of your fellow British subjects preferring to buy theirs at an American owned store.
It was contested, but not proven that the abolition of RPM/MAP would reduce competition and drive out small businesses. It was originally envisaged to facilitate larger production runs and better product quality for even small manufacturers, as well as encourage retailers to become better informed about the price managed product and thus advise / steer consumers toward purchasing those products and provide better after sales support should issues arise. However, I don’t see much of that happening even today, other than the option to return DOA or unsatisfactory products within a narrow return window. Your typical electrical/electronic product can fail outside of the retailer’s return window, but well within the manufacturer’s warranty period and typically your only option is to return the product to the manufacturer at your cost and receive a replacement product which still may not function properly. Ofcourse you can opt to pay for an additional warranty to the retailer for the privilege of exchanging at the point of purchase, but that applies equally to MAP and non-MAP products. So where is the benefit we consumers supposedly derive from a MAP product?
In the conclusion, the author states, “At the time these relationships seemed collusive and restrictive”, and now over 50 years later, it still doesn’t seem any different to most people.
“Conclusion: 1964 was indeed a turning point or manufacturers in their relationship with retailers. This
was an outcome envisaged and encouraged by a government with a zeal for competition,
which correctly identified rpm as the fulcrum of a series of economic relationships
covering wide swathes of British manufacturing. At the time these relationships seemed
collusive and restrictive: modem analysis might be more willing to endorse the views of
the minority of economists at the time who saw rpm as a form of vertical integration
which encouraged efftciency and competition”
KuoH