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Pondspectives with Mike

Pond Businesses Need to Follow the Minimum Advertised Pricing System

By Mike Garcia

The economic crisis has taken a toll on all businesses. While it’s no secret that the pond and water garden work was lacking this year, another hardship came from the manufacturing and distribution side.

Minimum Advertised Pricing, also known as MAP, offers protection for any industry. The pond and water garden world needs a MAP structure to level the playing field and make it fair and equitable to stay in the pond and water garden business.

MAP provides a great way to keep thing fair, but with the advent of the Internet, MAP seems to have been thrown to the wind. Just search the Internet for any given pond and water garden item, and you will find a plethora of products available for less than the cost to contractors.

Why can a homeowner buy pond and water garden products cheaper than a contractor can buy them? Simply put, not honoring the MAP enables distributors to sell at extremely reduced prices.

Is this fair? Is it right? I say, “no.”

Why would any business choose to lower prices so much that it doesn’t make any money?  Things are tight and we all are fighting for survival, but is giving products away really the answer?

No! Not following MAP helps put pond and water garden companies out of business because many consumers only buy from the cheapest source, leaving other sources to dry up. 

Is there a way to enforce MAP? Yes, there is. Pond and water garden product manufacturers are in the best position to tell customers that they must follow MAP or they won’t sell to them.

What do you think about MAP? Should manufacturers force their customers to follow the MAP system?

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Pond Businesses Need to Follow the Minimum Advertised Pricing System

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MAP pricing really wont work for long. Setting a nice profit margin for your suppliers is nice however you have to pay someone to continually enforce the rules. Online its simple but store to store would be more difficult. Lets say you can build a skimmer for $200 and your map is $449 suggesting a nice profit on each product. Undoubtable another company can sweep in with a similar model build for $200 with no MAP and you will just then be undercut by competitors that will range from $249-$399. That will leave your once happy customers selling few or no models of your for $449. Price fixing doesn't work for long. Zac deGarmeaux, Canton, OH Posted: 1/2/2010 1:56:26 AM I think "Map"is great as long as the Mfg's/Dist's enforce it. But the times are tough right now so......bottom line is they want to move product. If its moving they turn a blind eye as to HOW it maybe being sold and by whom. This in turn hurts the ones that follow "Map" pricing,which there doing to support the Mfg's/Dist's product line. We support then are they supporting us in return? It is hard to make a living, but when someone sells an item for 5.00 over our cost? Mfg's/Dist's let it continue.....then why have map pricing? As long as we have the internet this will be a on going battle with the drop shippers (carry no inventory) type's.....heck sell 100 item's at 5.00 profit they had a good month! Ok time for me to go pay my store rent/Ins/health Ins/worker's comp/vehical Ins/ GL Ins......wow looks like I need to sell 1000 item's at 5.00 over cost THIS week to make it! .......... Mark, San Diego, CA Posted: 12/12/2009 10:32:53 AM