M.A.P. -Why I don't like Minimum Advertised Pricing.

M.A.P. -Why I don't like Minimum Advertised Pricing.

More and more toy manufacturers are attempting to enforce "Minimum Advertised Pricing" policies for online sales. The general idea is to impose a minimum price, below which a product may not be sold. Selling for less can result in non-shipment of new product to the offending retailer. On the surface, this seems an honorable act. Usually we're told that it's to "level the playing field" between us and the big boxes such as Target or Walmart. Companies don't want to "cheapen the brand".

Thanks, but not only didn't I ask for the field to be leveled, I didn't realize that a level playing field was the point of owning a business in a capitalist society! I didn't get into business to even try and compete with big boxes. I'm not that stupid.

While we appreciate and understand the intent of fair pricing, what it essentially does is make small stores like Pow!Science! virtually invisible in web search results, despite our best SEO efforts. We can't buy the top spots (which no matter what you may have read elsewhere, are for sale) or afford to run up huge AdSense bills, so we end up on page 3, or 6....or deeper still. And when all the prices are the same, nobody will search past page 1 or 2 of their search results. Heck, they don't even do that when prices are all over the map (no pun intended). Price is the one edge we've got, and because we've got lower overhead and other avenues of income, we can usually afford to offer a pretty competitive one--M.A.P. takes that away.

Our superior customer service and product knowledge don't count for much when we can't even get seen. Our lower overhead loses its advantageous properties when we can't utilize it to give ourselves an edge on price just to get noticed online.

And of course, it's just not enforceable. Every time I get an email from a manufacturer telling me of new M.A.P. Policies, I do a product search, and invariably find sites that are selling for less.

We're not saying M.A.P. is wrong. Even Communism works on paper. We're just saying that without exception, it has resulted in decreased online sales for us in every line that imposes it, and there are always businesses out there that ignore it. Me, I'd rather have the opportunity to sell ten units at a lower profit than Zero units but with the integrity and warm fuzzy feeling of knowing I'm not "cheapening the brand". Can't eat warm fuzzies.

What do you think?