Subject:
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Re: Class Action suit against KB toys
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.market.theory
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Date:
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Tue, 26 Aug 2003 03:36:19 GMT
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Viewed:
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1905 times
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"Kevin Salm" <kdsalm@dreamscape.com> wrote in message
news:HK6DpC.A16@lugnet.com...
> Honestly, I cannot belive this case went forward and that the guy even • won.
> Seems like the court made a pretty incredible ruling.
>
> MSRP is the SUGGESTED retail price. Individual retailers should be • permitted to
> sell at whatever price they choose for whatever reason. Also, it is
important
Kevin,
I think that you are misreading the purpose of the lawsuit. The problem
isn't with KB selling stuff above MSRP. The problem is with them putitng
stuff on sale and inflating the "Original Price (MSRP)" so that it looks
like the sale is better than it actually is. As Dave points out, KB does
regularly sell stuff above MSRP, and when that goes on sale there is no
problem as they were actually selling it at the inflated price originally.
Where KB runs into problems is when they buy out liquidation stock, such as
the star wars sets, and then print up price stickers with bogus original
prices. They have never sold the items at the higher price, so they are not
actually offering any discount. As Paul pointed out, this is illegal in
some places. Should be illegal everywhere if you ask me. If KB were to
list the "MSRP" they would also be OK, as that is the "standard" price for
the item.
Big Lots is even worse at this, because they never actually sell anything at
retali pricing. Everything they have is already on sale. I've seen things
marked up so much that with their "closeout pricing" it brings it back down
to MSRP! I think Tuesday Morning is the worst offender in this area though.
I can certianly understand why retailers do this type of thing though.
Because it works. A couple months back I ran a test in my BL store, where I
marked up the price on my "top 100" items by quantity, and then put them on
sale. Just the excitement of a sale got people to buy things even though
they wer ethe same price, or a little bit less, than the day before! I was
truely amazed that it worked out that way.
I guessi'm just a more educated shopper than alot of people out there. I
pay no attention to what the store tells me the original price is, or to
percentage off discounts. I look at the price i'm going to get the item for
and determine if that is a good deal based on as much information as
possible. Comparing prices between as many stores as possible is the best
way to make sure you are truely getting a good deal.
Unfortunately, most people won't spend the time to do the comparison. And
retailers will take advantage of that. Last year TRU ran test to see if
people would notice increased prices on items. I doubt that most people
did. I immediately noticed that one of my local TRUs had all the items in
the lego aisle marked up +10% over MSRP. After cornering one of the workers
for a while, he spilled that they were "running tests" and that each store
was given a product line to increase the prices on. One store would do
"LEGO", one store would do "Barbie", etc.
I have not seen the pricing strategy spread, so hopefully it didn't work out
for them. I know that I certainly didn't buy anything at the store that had
LEGO marked up. Not that I generally buy at MSRP anyways.
Troy
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Class Action suit against KB toys
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| (...) I didn't, and I'm in there 3-6 times every week. (...) Ah, see, I pretty much stick to a handful of different lines, so if they didn't mark those up (or if they marked up Star Wars toys during a period of time in which they stocked _NOTHING_ (...) (21 years ago, 26-Aug-03, to lugnet.market.theory)
| | | Re: Class Action suit against KB toys
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| (...) I was in a Big Lots today. Most of the recent BL price stickers are merely a price and a bar-code. I think Big Lots has done away with the MSRP shell game (at least in the toys dept). (...) I have seen subtle pricing variations at Target (...) (21 years ago, 26-Aug-03, to lugnet.market.theory)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Class Action suit against KB toys
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| (...) Honestly, I cannot belive this case went forward and that the guy even won. Seems like the court made a pretty incredible ruling. MSRP is the SUGGESTED retail price. Individual retailers should be permitted to sell at whatever price they (...) (21 years ago, 25-Aug-03, to lugnet.market.theory)
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