Leisurepro Gift Certificates - Shame on them

[RIDIVER501]

Good point and this is not a slam on you but it is easy to not see it as a catch 22 when you aren't the one caught in the middle. you are the consumer and your logic is perfectly fine for a consumer but everything isn't always as simple as it seems it could be.

 

[RIDIVER501]

"Price fixing" I love that catch phrase. so easy to misconstrue. MSRP is not price fixing...
price fixing is when some one tells you you will sell my product for x price, not x+ one dollar not x- one doller but X period. Like Nntendo cartridges were price fixed back in their early days of existence.

MSRP is based on how much the manufacturer has to charge the distributer for an item and then recommends a reasonable price for that item's sale. distributers are allowed to sell below MSRP but there is a percentage limit and other factors to consider like. what pricing level based on volume am I on with the Manufacturer....etc retailer can only go so low with the price of an item before it actually costs them to sell the item and the sale results in a negative cash sum.

 

[saf_25]

"Price fixing" I love that catch phrase. so easy to misconstrue. MSRP is not price fixing...
price fixing is when some one tells you you will sell my product for x price, not x+ one dollar not x- one doller but X period. Like Nntendo cartridges were price fixed back in their early days of existence.

MSRP is based on how much the manufacturer has to charge the distributer for an item and then recommends a reasonable price for that item's sale. distributers are allowed to sell below MSRP but there is a percentage limit and other factors to consider like. what pricing level based on volume am I on with the Manufacturer....etc retailer can only go so low with the price of an item before it actually costs them to sell the item and the sale results in a negative cash sum.

That's true, but not the case with most SCUBA manufacturers. Basically, the situation that exists now is that most of the big brands tell their authorized dealers that, if they are caugt selling gear below $X (which still is a net profit point for the shops) then they will no longer be considered athorized dealers and will not be allowed to purchase products from the manufacturers. It's not a matter of breaking point of the price, it's that minimum prices are fixed by the manufacturers. They don't focus on maximum prices (they want to have their stuff sell for as much as possible - it keeps the appearance of "quality") but they clearly dictate minimum prices. There are lots of posts here on this.

 

[RIDIVER501]

The lower level prices are a bit of both. If you had no lower price limit you could get into a pricing war with other LDS that carry the same line and ultimately everyone suffers in that situation, The LDSs involved, the customers to some extent and the manufacturers.
But think about it. You sell a product at a certain price becuase that is what you need to make to cover your overhead and still make a profit....you are sucessful selling the product at that price so you sell enough product to get yourself into a lower cost per unit from your manufacturer.
Should you continue to sell it at the price you have been and keep the extra profits for your buisness? Should you pass that savings onto your customer? Does passing that savings on now devalue the the quality of the product in the eyes of previous consumers? Should you save that cost savings you are getting and pass it on to your faithful repeat customers and keep the original sales price for all the One Time just looking for a deal customers? There really is no right answer looking at it from all points of view... The customer would say to pass the savings along. The manufacturers would say keep the profits as reward for your success. I think most LDSs would be torn between the two and hoping to find that middle ground between both.

 

[mikswi]

I guess in any business that involves servicing customers, there will always be occassions when things don't go as planned and customers end up getting a bad taste in their mouth... how you respond to those problems is the difference between good and bad business ... but mailing gift certificates from an online store??? I'm still scratching my head on that one.

"but mailing gift certificates from an online store??? "

Huh, ya know- I really didnt look at it like that LOL! Its actually kinda funny. They could just send the reciever an email with a link to their site.

Sometimes the obvious escapes us all...........

 

[jbd]

Okay.. This is probably a stupid question, but.. How can a Manufacturer get away with specifying the price of a product to the seller. Shouldn't that be the sellers decision? That sort of sounds like price fixing. How does price fixing benefit the manufacturer, suppliers, and LDS?

This whole topic was covered by a person with the scubaboard name of Genesis. I believe he had somone in an attorney generals office look into this and they found nothing illegal. What gets the LDS owners PO'd, and rightfully so IMHO, is that places like LP are apparently not held to the same pricing requirements and they must be getting their stuff through some gray market operation or possibly direct from the manufacturers. This whole thing prevents the LDS from being able to compete at all and IMHO is unfair to the LDS.

 

[Ted S]

As a programmer of e-commerce systems I know of and have seen this issue many times. As mad as you may be at the providers keep in mind that it may be a software limitation, not a evil decision -- not all shopping carts allow for digital items. When I put together the www.scubaboarddeals.com website one of things we did was to make sure gift certificates were digital with an option to have a paper copy shipped, I don't expect people to ever order the paper copy but it's there if they want it. The feature its self is however rather tricky, you have to define items as gift certificates and generate codes in a way such that you dont have duplicates and you also have codes unique enough that someone cant guess them. Hopefully a simple phone call can fix up this problem as the shop should be able to fax or email you a copy of the code purchased over the phone but perhaps not, it is certainly a shame to see anyone taking advantage of shipping as a means of compensating for low prices but on the internet it is done all the time.

 

[davidr]

"but mailing gift certificates from an online store??? "

I actually just called LP and they said that you can order with a gift certificate over the phone just not online yet.

You could order online and then call in with your cretificate # and they'll take that amount off your charge, at least that's what they told me.

 

[Scubaguy62]

Find the item you want in LP's website, check Scubatoys.com to see if they sell it on theirs, call scubatoys and get it for the LP price. Scubatoys only charges straight shipping (there are no handling charges), and they ARE authorized dealers!!!!!