Bill,

I used to have a similar reaction to these kinds of activities by
manufacturers. But Wal Mart, and the internet, have somewhat changed my
opinion.

It's gotten where you cannot get service from ANYONE, for ANYTHING, ANYMORE.
The reason is too much pricing info.

I would be happy to relate how this works to any given industry, but here is
a Garmin example.

You want a handheld GPS. You want quality, but you don't necessarily need
every bell and whistle. You start shopping by reading the internet, talking
to friends, and asking questions of sales people. Then you start going over
what you learn and look for the best price for the model you want.

The only problem is that the guy who put up an informative website, paid for
someone intelligent and well mannered to answer questions, and otherwise did
things to keep demand up has a higher cost of sale than the chain smoker
with a cheap website and a telephone in a rusty building. If Garmin wants
the first guy to stay in business, they have to do something to prevent
their active distributors from being constantly under cut by box movers.
And that is that.

Many schemes have been tried, but the simplest one, that costs the least,
ends up being price policing. We would all like to have a knowledgeable
pilot give us a professional knowledge transfer for our important purchases,
but we consistently buy from the cheap guy who provides an idiot clerk with
a bad attitude caused by ill treatment from idiot management.

Perhaps you make your living from a business where this sort of thing is not
a problem, but to many business this has become a real issue.


"TripodBill" wrote in message
...
Subject: Garmin too big for their britches? (Fixed Pricing)
From: (TripodBill)
Date: 7/14/2004 12:09 AM Central Standard Time
Message-id:

Many readers appropriately picked up on one of the most important issues
in my
earlier post: Minimum Retail Price Policy (i.e., controls). For those that
are
still interested in the subject and are of the "pilot persuasion" here's
an
update of what you can expect at the Oshkosh show this year. You may
recall
from my previous post that I relayed information from a friend
Garmin's new
price policy on the GPSMAP 296 at SunNFun. Well, if you are headed to
EAA's
Oshkosh show this year, there is good and bad news. Good news: The older
GPSMAP
196 will be cheaper this year at about $795. More Good news: There will be
new
low-end handhelds in B&W and color to replace the aging GPS III Pilot and
GPSMAP 295. The new handhelds will both be in the GPSMAP 76 form factor.
(Not
sure if that's a great design for yoke mounting, but I'll leave that to
pilots
to decide.) Bad news? ALL MODELS will now be under the Minimum Retail
Price
Policy, meaning no dealer at the show will be competing with another
dealer.
Buy from whoever you like, 'cause they can't sell it to you any cheaper.
Any
dealer that screws up and offers free shipping, a package deal, or
discounted
accessory will be canceled by Garmin. Garmin has now fixed prices on all
their
aviation products. It will be just a matter of time before they do the
same in
the automotive, outdoor and marine product lines. Happy shopping!

-Bill Hicks


(for more info, see sci.geo.satellite-nav newsgroup)