This is a nice win for consumers.
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Itâs weird how the pro big business attitude is so anti-competitive under the guise of the âfree marketâ.
Crushing small and medium sized businesses using tactics that have nothing to do with scale of industry.
I enjoy the convenience of Amazon and loathe malls, but I donât want Amazon and Wal-Mart to be the only businesses around.
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That is what 2 local stores told me about Pioneer headphones
I donât know of any âsmall businessesâ that are in local mallsâŚseems that the small businesses and big retailers are both accessible via the same convenient platform. Most people just opt for the free Hosa cables or $20 off.
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Brands have complete freedom to choose who they supply. Thatâs not in question.
They just canât price fix.
Hidden conditions like that would just decimate the retail sector now that brands can sell direct.
Not the owner?
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Fine. Just know youâre putting power with corps and their lawyers who have no interest in transparency or accountability, or even a functioning market.
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They can give a recommended market price, nothing illegal about it, they can also choose which retailer to work with. They do not have to state a reason for not working with someone, but if you are lowballing their products and devalue their brand your simply not a good fit for them. You as a retailer are not entitled to sell their products period.
The fact brands can sell direct is the very reason many retail business will have to close down, rightfully so. The decline in competence in the retail business is one reason many tech related retailers has been neglected, because no one wants to shop where the staff knows less than you about the gear you want to purchase. (my self included)
Working for a distributor (photo tech related) i know the chore it is to get retail staff educated on the latest products, very few of them are willing to learn something new. This goes for the #1 retailer in our country. So itâs in the distributors interest to shift focus onto selling gear to the end user, which they have done. The benefit for the end consumer ? They get expert advice from someone who knows the products in and out.
Do you think the distributor let the retailer set their prices as they see fit ? No they have recommended price and if you want to buy from them you respect that and do not low ball them devalue their customers, or your out. The distributors are also the ones offering discounts and campaigns to the retailers, very few serious retailers takes this of their own margin. So the notion that some of the retailers will go under simply because they canât set their own prices on everything is flawed. If they would low ball their prices all the time, their margins will be gone and they will be out of business for that very reason.
Iâv been in the retail business for many years, as employee (retailer) as manufacturer and working with distributors.
The big evil corporation stance is old and tiresome, once you have knowledge what goes into putting a product on the market youâr entitlement as a consumer fades away pretty quickly.
Ultimately the price is up to the consumer, as it should be, some people like to buy as ethically as possible and will pay for that, some people like to buy what they perceive as the best quality and they will pay for that, some people like to buy as cheaply as possible and will pay for that, and so on. It is up to companies to fit their pricing within the various types of consumer, which is why you have on one end of the scale say Bentley and on the other end of the scale say Dacia.
Not really, and that would be hell, you are putting the power with the consumer to decide if they want to spend their money on that particular brand or not.
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Iâm not pro âbig businessâ if that is what you thought, I think that big corporations have the means to swerve government regulations where small and medium sized businesses do not, the âfree marketâ in its purest form seems to be a better solution than making business difficult for small companies to compete on a level playing field with these monolithic corporations, IMHO.
Too soon after LIBOR?
None of this is news. Whatâs your point?
If you didnât get the point by now, Iâm not gonna spend more time on you. Take care.
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Regulation here is to steer the sector from cartel-like behaviour. You are right that it is something of a judgment call.
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I canât imagine âregulations badâ then going on to look for corporations to do right by you as if antitrust actions mean they have your best interests in mind.
You stated that letting big corporations steamroll small ones is a GOOD thing, because having any regulations is worse.
Itâs a shame theyâve done a better job showing that they can price it that way by doing zero R&D and stealing someone elseâs circuits and product design.
Iâd have such higher opinion of Uli if they made more fusion devices like the Deepmind or more original designs.
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There is no gain for the end user in terms of innovation when you have companies that steal IP and simply make cheaper stuff.
In my profession as a photographer iâv made it a habit of staying clear from brands making blatant copies of other peoples works. Which I also do in general regardless of what iâm purchasing as copyright is something i take seriously.
Which is one of the reasons i donât own anything made by Behringer.
As for protecting a brand, well for you that arenât entrepreneurs you might be more difficult to understand what it takes to build up something from the ground, what it takes to develop a product and put in on the market.
But letâs paint a scenario that most of you probably can relate to in this forum.
Take any of companies that put out innovative products, be Blokas, Squarp Instruments, Kodamo, Sequentix etc.
Imagine them going to a trade show announcing and showing off their new product or even prototype.
Imagine then someone simply taking their idea, doing minor design adjustments and put it out as their own for cheaper. This would crush any of the above companies.
Once a company grow in size, protecting their brand becomes very important, and protecting it involves a lot of patents, trademarks etc. All which cost a lot of money.
The notion that just because you are a big company you are evil is such a flawed view, just because youâr making a profit itâs considered bad ?
Also for anyone who hasnât been living under a rock, all big corporations does not bathe in money, many tech companies have struggled long before corona.
In the end i think it comes down to how we view the world and what we feel we are entitled to.
Letâs be honest the market we talk about here, are luxury items in terms of survival we do not need to buy anything we do not feel add value to our lives.
So you as a consumer have to power to buy or not, which in turn will control the demand.
What has that got to do with a retailer discounting their stock?
Youâre attacking a straw man, nobody said that.
The way I understand it, the manufacturer wants to avoid bargain basement dealers who sell the gear at rock bottom prices but with little or no customer service, no aftercare, no expert staff who can give customers advice to get the right product for them.
If everybody buys their synths from cheap-and-nasty.com because theyâre slightly cheaper than the bricks and mortar stores, then the established bricks and mortar stores go out of business. That means no showrooms where customers can demo the gear and no experienced advisors to help customers. That can mean unhappy customers who end up with the wrong gear and a bad experience of the brand.
I think thatâs the theory anyway.