anonEmouse
@comcast.net
| reply to Devistater
Re: Total BS!
Here's a concrete example that took me just a few seconds to find, if you click on the digital camera category. At the top you'll see an olympus SP-320 camera. That site claims the MSRP is $400. But if you google for olympus SP-320 MSRP, you'll see a number of sites such as this one:
»www.dcresource.com/reviews/camer···?cam=814
That show the MSRP is actually $300.
In fact here's a preview of the camera before it was released which shows the same MSRP of $300 (just in case you want to claim that its been lowered over time since the camera's release)
»www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/S···320A.HTM
$300 is NOT the MSRP price for the Olympus SP-320. It is the "Estimated Street Price" (ESP, sometimes alternately known as ERP for Estimated Retail Price):
»www.imaging-resource.com/NEWS/11···769.html
Products very seldom sell for their MSRP prices. MSRP is simply a price far in excess of the real retail price, allowing retailers to claim they're selling at a "30% discount" (or whatever) rather than admitting they're selling at the exact same price everybody else is.
Another common one is MAP, or Minimum Advertised Price, where authorised dealers are barred from publishing a price below a certain figure in their advertisements or promotional materials, and usually they're also barred from revealing the price on a website before capture of a shopper's identity / adding the item to a shopping cart / whatever. This one exists solely to prop up prices from retailers who are overcharging for a product by preventing the competition from advertising their lower price. |
