(Supreme) Court Abandons Ban on Minimum Pricing

Source: Associated Press

Court Abandons Ban on Minimum Pricing

Thursday, June 28, 2007; 1:41 PM

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Thursday abandoned
a 96-year-old ban on manufacturers and retailers setting
price floors for products.

In a 5-4 decision, the court said that agreements on minimum
prices are legal if they promote competition.

The ruling means that accusations of minimum pricing pacts
will be evaluated case by case.

The Supreme Court declared in 1911 that minimum pricing
agreements violate federal antitrust law.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/28/AR2007062800858.html

I pledge allegience to Wall Street

who can't afford to compete with the low prices at Walmart

I had a small gift shop a few years back and I just don't see how this ruling would make me more competitive. Because I could never buy in volume as Wal-Mart does, putting a low price on items would still not be truly competitive....unless wholesalers sold to me at the same rate as Wal-Mart. Sorry, but I just don't understand.

Although Walmart might have higher profit margins in the deal, your goods can still be profitable, and you could compete by offering better quality service to attract more customers. The alternative scenario would be Walmart using it's economies of scale to sell the goods below your wholesale price, which would hurt your business even more.

That's the logic behind it, but it may work differently in practice. The court's decision says it should be viewed by a case by case basis, so the FTC, or whatever regulating body, will have the final say to how this will be applied. In most cases I see the consumers getting hurt by higher prices, so I doubt the FTC is going to allow this too much in practice.

The court case involved a niche wholesaler, who wanted retailers to focus on giving good customer service rather than competing by prices, so this could just be a special case.

so I have to let this set in.....yeah, it does make a bit a sense now....why am I so thick on some days??? anyway, I had a unique shop/studio combo and I tried to make the shopping experience fun, a place to sit and have coffee or tea and have packages wrapped for free...I loved it but short season (tourist area) just didn't make it fruitful enough to continue.....not to say I won't try it again...now that we're in a better location. Wal-Mart was never a problem. Closest one was sixty miles away!

the practice will end up helping the corporations, not the small businesses.

besides, haven't you heard? the new american consumer mindset is all about CHEAP. they don't care who is hurt, as long as they can buy CHEAP.

It's consistent with everything else the Right has done since Reagan took office.

so they are trying to do as much damage as possible before they too are thrown in jail.

Legal, not moral.

Damnit!

Again!

Forget those Internet discounts. If it's not priced at retail, there must be something wrong with it. :sarcasm:

5-4 decision.

while the clock continues to spin backwards. Next week THEY will be teaching that the earth is flat.

this is not neccesarily a bad thing. as long as pricing agreements were equal among different retailers, this means that a company can stop WalMart from undercutting everyone else on their products. If there are different price agreements for different stores, this would be anti-competitive behaviour and a problem.

While we may get a degree of enjoyment from the notion of Wal*Mart not being able to feature their "low, low prices," the inescapable reality is that this is going to raise the price on virtually everything, from everywhere. Want to see the fun that ensues when books at Amazon, say, can only be sold at full-ticket price? Or when Costco (to name a progressive company based on low prices) can only sell items at the same price as your local Macy's or Home Depot?

And Wal*Mart will survive, no matter what. They're too big to kill now. Even if they're only selling for the exact same price as everyone else, it matters little when they've already driven everyone else out of business (as they have in countless small towns and rural areas throughout the country) so that they're "the only game in town." All it means is that they'll be able to rake in more profit per item sold.

There's lots of screaming, understandably, about today's anti-integration decision, but I would say that this decision is going to have a far wider and more detrimental effect upon the average American.

for something like books, why would they bother? they get paid the same by Amazon as by Barnes and Noble, why do they care who charges less? in fact, they will sell MORE books if Amazon can discount. So Simon and Schuster says "you have to charge $29.95 for this book" and Amazon says "fine, but we won't promote it, and we are only buying 200 from you, instead of our normal 1,000, because we don't think it will sell at that price in our store, oh, and by the way, we won't be promoting it for you, either" think the company will change it's mind on minimums?

as long as the minimum price is the same for all retailers, I don't see the problem with it, frankly, and I don't think it will really affect you as much as you think it will, unless you buy luxury goods on sale a lot.

Apple, for instance, already basically has minimum pricing for the most part, if you charge more than a couple of percent below the MSRP, they will refuse to ship you more goods. This is really only going to work on items that are 'must haves' and unique in the marketplace. but for goods that aren't branded as well, where there are substitutes, those will fill in the cheaper price point.

So for sure, if the efforts by manufacturers to overturn 100 years of anti-trust regulations were just 'for the principle', and they have no actualy intentions to use minimum pricing to control retailers, then yes it will not have any effect. I rather suspect that this is not what they had in mind.

Which we know darn well it isn't.

I had that rude awakening when I ran a 1-person business in the 1980's. I rented trucks periodically, and once found a receipt in one showing a competitor had paid about 1/2 the per-mile rate I had. When I confronted the rental company about it, they said, "Of course we give them a better price. They rent lots of trucks from us all the time." Nice to know there's a level playing field. Not!

Wal-Mart is known for locking their suppliers into small windowless rooms and pummeling them down on price (*wholesale* price) until they cry Uncle. These aren't little-bitty suppliers, these are the biggest product companies in the world, making everything from soap to computers. Wally says, "We'll pay this, but no more--there's the door." But since they own over half the retail market in the US, walking out is commercial suicide. A lot of production has been off-shored because that's the only way to produce at the price that Wally insists on.

Problem is, of course, that if your mom-and-pop store tries to get the same wholesale price from one of these big suppliers, they say, "Ha! When you're selling as many units a month as Wal-Mart, then maybe we'll talk!"

The biggest retailers can still turn the tables on companies like Apple and say, "Let us buy it for $X, and sell it for $Y dollars, or we won't sell it." Only now, if a mom-and-pop is able to make a good deal for themselves on the wholesale price (back channels, clearance items, excess inventory from a wholesaler), the manufacturer can now say, "But you can't sell it for less than Wal-Mart!"

Lose/lose for both small biz and consumers.

The take-over of all three branches of government by corporations and the wealthy is now complete. That of/by/for the people stuff was all just so much Enlightenment-era silliness. Let's get back to solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short!

You always get cheaper per unit costs in bulk (the sole raison d'etre for costco) this decision has nothing to do with that. This decision concerns retail pricing. this can turn an msrp into a mmmp (manfucturer's mandatory minimum price) and would apply to all retailers selling the product. The only time this will actually occur is on goods where maintaining a certain high price is invaluable to the brand. And frankly, those goods are not sold at WalMart. 90% of manufacturers don't give much of a fuck what the retail price of their goods is, they just want to move units at their wholesale price, or if they own the retail establishment, this doesn't matter anyway, since they set their own retail prices. this will affect brands for whomA certain price point is part of their marketing image, and who would rather sell fewer, higher priced Units than more lower priced ones. Companies who would rather have their goods unsoldthan sold on sale. You can't buy $200 jeans at Target, right? Why? Because that would ruin the whole point of charging $200 for a pair of jeans which is exclusivity.Ok, crackberry dying will follow up later.

Walmart is so powerful, they'll be able to prevent manufactures from imposing any price floors anyway.

It will be retailers with little bargaining power on whom large manufacturers impose price floors

What this will do is prevent retailers from selling surplus, or products that aren't moving at below cost, which will mean no more sales which benefit consumers and help small retailers cut their losses.

This is a way to protect the big guy. It will mean WalMart always makes a profit because they'll never have their low price undercut by someone who is trying to clear the shelves of last season's merchadise.

price floors have to be consistent, otherwise that is a blatant violation of Sherman. (which was not overturned here) There can't be one price floor for WalMart and another for Target for the same good. Which is why few goods that are in places like walmart will have floors, if WalMart and Target get together and say "Look, we will not carry a product that has a price floor on it, we wany pricing flexiblity for our customers" then you won't take the risk of not being in those stores, right?

by the way, this doesn't neccesarily mean you can't sell for below cost, it means the manufacturer can insist on a certain price at retail, whatever the profit margin for the store is. it's matter more for luxury and branded goods than is is for at least stuff I buy.

job explaining.

I said that manufactures won't have price floors in their contracts with Walmart, but will have them with retailers with less bargaining power.

if anybody has a link to a website that is explaining this pleeze let me know.

and can undercut her prices to the point where she can't stay in business.

I don't think she would be affected really, since tourists don't usually travel to go to a Walmart.

if her items have a price floor? it makes her more competitive, not less.

Especially if it might help the small business compete against the big business.

There is a reason why this rule has been in place for almost 100 years and we're about to find out, again, why.

Held in thrall by the big fear: fear of drugs, fear of terra, fear of illegals, fear of whatever. The global corporate elites won WWIII and we didn't even put up a fight.

When we are all working at the same level as the 'rising' asian manufacturers, when all of us are multi-millionaires except a house costs 5,000,000 and a car costs 300,000 and your kids college tuition is 500,000, BUT FUCKING BLURAY-HDTV IS REAL CHEAP, only your internet access bill is 1200/month, AND YOU LIVE IN A SEMITROPICAL CLIMATE IN WHAT USED TO BE A TEMPERATE ZONE, and gas for that 300,000 car, when you can find it, is $30/gallon, and your other kid got his lower limbs blown to shit during the 12th year of the mesopotamian disaster, perhaps then YOU WILL WAKE THE FUCK UP.

I despair of more than a pitiful 5% waking up. And only 25% having the ethics and heart to know right from wrong, Constitutional from not.

This all goes back to the 2000 election and to Florida, where St. Ralph's ego overcame his promise not to run there.

Fuck you, Ralph. This is YOUR fault.

on the buttery fly ballot... :sarcasm:

The Supremes gave it to George. Gore won. End of story.

Had St. Ralph kept his ego in check, it never would have gone to the Supremes.

End of story .... no sarcasm smilie needed.

Well, here it is. And this is only the beginning!

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Nader said there's no difference in how the parties operate in the public sphere. If you don't believe him, look at all the wonderful things our Democratic congress has done to stop the war, promote universal health care, reign in corporate malfeasance..wait. They haven't done any of that.

It's not Nader's fault, it's Gore's for running a terrible campaign, debating poorly, letting the Republicans attack him constantly, then folding like a wet noodle when the election was stolen. To borrow your arrogant phrase, "end of story."

Nader ran in Florida when he said he wouldn't run in states where Bush could win.

He didn't stick to his word.

Everything else is apologetic bullshit and mental masturbation.

End of story.

..if the incumbent vice-president of a very popular president had run something other than a passive, lame campaign where the opponent dictated the tempo at every turn. People in that position don't lose because of third-party candidates. If you cannot win with such an advantage, it's your own damned fault you blew the campaign.

Notice all the cases that are being resolved with a 5/4 vote. I think they will try to ram as many cases as possible until the end of this legislature. All right-wing pet causes will receive the 5/4 solution.

This new ruling helps manufacturers get top dollar for their goods. It may spur new manufacturers into the market who will be able to compete on the same level as preexisting manufacturers, but retailers and small business' are going to have to work harder to bring in customers. They can't use lower prices any more. Our recourse as consumers is to not purchase products at the Manufacturers retail price, letting it sit on shelfs and in warehouses until the manufactures are forced to ok lowering the pricing in order to move the products.

They are reviewing cases from Guantanamo.....Again...this should be VERY interesting...Stay tuned...wierd things happen on Friday afternoons

The Supreme Court, reversing course, agreed Friday to review whether Guantanamo Bay detainees may go to federal court to challenge their indefinite confinement.

The action, announced without comment along with other end-of-term orders, is a setback for the Bush administration. It had argued that a new law strips courts of their jurisdiction to hear detainee cases.

In April, the court turned down an identical request, although several justices indicated they could be persuaded otherwise.

The move is highly unusual.

The court did not indicate what changed the justices' minds about considering the issue.

The cases are Boumediene v. Bush, 06-1195, and Al Odah v. U.S., 06-1196.

Full link...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070629/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_guantanamo

:banghead: