Originally Posted by Dilettante

True.
This is probably worse news for big box stores like Wal-Mart than for little retailers. The mega-stores are the ones more likely to drop prices below MSRP because they're the ones who can make it up in volume.
Now if the manufacturer sets a standard sales price, he'll be effectively leveling the playing field.

Originally Posted by Thematic-Device

Or they'll simply make different contracts, depending on their relationship with the particular retailer.


Lets say a manufacturer sets out in their contracts that they're product cannot be sold for anything less then 400% of what it was sold for wholesale. Seemingly an equal scheme. However, when combined with bulk purchasing discounts it would massively benefit large stores, to make small purchasers uncompetitive. Lets say if the retailer received a bulk purchase discount of 5%, it would instead give him an edge on competitors of 20%.

Originally Posted by goober

This is a pure payback to big business ruling, they bought and paid for this court and now it's going to rule in their favor.

Minimum Retail Pricing is all about profits for the manufacturer.
It results in higher margins for retailers, and higher margins for manufacturers.
All paid for by the consumer.
This hurts the retailer who discounts, and the result is a marketplace that has more retailers, but smaller retailers, allowing the manufacturer more control of the market. The minimum retail price, coupled with minimum order amounts, limit the number of competing products a retailer can stock.
This is just the beginning of the bad decisions that this Supreme Court will start to churn out and with the older justices being the pro-consumer liberals, it's important that the Democrats occupy the White House in 2009.

Originally Posted by Angry American

I wonder if it will be possible to set up some sort of retail buy-back scheme, similar to France's short term car leases. Where they lease cars primarily to foreign tourists for anywhere from three weeks to six months tax free. Then the French auto makers re-sell the cars to the French public--minus a large portion of the initial sales tax not associated with pre-owned cars (that's my interpretation, I'm not fully versed in the details.)

So maybe retailers could take back recent purchases from customers, and then give them a store credit, which they could then use to purchase the same, or different, product. They wouldn't be able to buy the product they returned as it would be in escrow for 30 days, while it was reconditioned.

Manufacturers could also do this to compete on price.

That's just a quick thought on how price fixing might be subverted, but I haven't seen how this law/regulation is written, nor how it will be enforced.

How do manufacturers intend to police price fixing? Word of mouth?

There are an awful lot of deals to be had, which aren't advertised, or published. Those deals are private transactions between the store and the customer. Would it be done in year-end receipts, thus enforced by a new arm of the IRS?

This is more government regulation, and effectively adds a tax to the American consumer, and restricts free trade in the distribution chain.

This will certainly increase the cost of living by several percentage points, which will put additional strain on wages that already fail to keep pace with the cost of living.

If manufacturers don't adjust their mandated retail price with fluctuations in demand, the economy will slow, and the manufacturer who can adjust prices most effectively may hold a competitive edge.

Blah, blah, blah ... this is killing my beautiful Sunday, gotta go out and fire up the grill now.