How low can it go? — Not very, as it turns out
Link to Why you can't get iPods at a discount. - By Sean Cooper - Slate Magazine
Ever wonder why the prices for some things vary so wildly from store to store, even from week to week? Ever notice that iPods, in fact ALL Apple products, are the same price no matter where you go? Ever been shopping online and found an item that you had to add to your cart to find out the price? Slate's got the answer, and I'll reveal it all, just read more…
So, there I am, searching for a 4gb iPod nano for my lovely wife. I'm thinking either the pink one or the (product) Red version. (Side note, the charity factor of the (PRODUCT) RED nano is cool, but with the white click wheel, the thing looks like a Target ad — but I digress.) Apple.com: $200. Circuit City: $200. Best Buy: $200 Everywhere you go, the 4GB nano is $200. (– The anomaly is New Egg at $190.) It seems so unusual, it really raises the eyebrows. Price collusion? Draconian resale policy from Apple? What gives?
Sean Cooper has the dirt in a recent Slate.com article. Turns out it is something called: Minimum Advertised Price. The MAP is the price that Apple sets as the lowest that a retailer can advertise a product for. They aren't prevented from SELLING it for less, simply from advertising it for less. If they do advertise it for less, they give up marketing subsidies from the manufacturer. So, to distill it into simple language, Apple is paying retailers to keep the prices up.
MAP is pretty widely accepted in retail circles. Automakers use it quite a lot, as do movie studios and electronics companies, but in 2000 the FTC demanded that the five big record labels back off on some of their MAP policies. As is often the case, Big Music was using its position to keep prices artificially high. Probably so they could continue to complain about music piracy…but we'll let that one go for now.
So I guess that 4GB nano will just have to wait a while longer… that's alright, MacWord is coming up in January, maybe they'll have something new and wonderful.
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