Festool price increase....February 1, 2009

[Jay Pique]

Looks like Festools are going up. Check out...

more information.

JP

[Robatoy]

The crevice nozzle has one of the biggest increases at 14+%. You know why? They want to keep them for themselves and suck the money out of your pocket.

[SonomaProducts.com]

Somehow "Festool prices" and "crevice nozzel" seem to fit very well together in the same sentence.

[marc rosen]

I just hope their marketing department does not find a way to make it retroactive. Marc

[marc rosen]

Additional comments; I heard this on NPR last week and I was thinking about Festool and its relationship with its retailers. Here's the link and the pasted transcript.

Would End Manufacturers' Price-Setting Power by Jeff Brady

All Things Considered, December 4, 2008 =B7 A fight is brewing in Washington over whether manufacturers should have the right to set minimum retail prices for the products they make.

For nearly a century, courts have banned the practice under antitrust laws. In July 2007, however, the Supreme Court overturned nearly a century of precedence, upsetting retailers such as eBay and Costco.

Now those retailers are lobbying for a bill that would bypass the court decision.

History

The case centered on a brand of purses called Brighton, made by Leegin Creative Leather Products in Pasadena, Calif. Leegin sells to independent retailers, not big chains like Macy's and Bloomingdale's.

Phil Smith was one of those retailers. He owned a story called Kay's Kloset in suburban Dallas. In order to compete with a nearby airport shop that gave airline employees a 20 percent discount, he slashed prices by that much for all his customers.

Leegin stopped shipping purses to Smith. He subsequently went out of business and took the company to court.

"It is an insult to my status as an independent retailer to have my prices dictated by a manufacturer," Smith said.

The case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where Smith lost.

"Allowing price fixing will result in higher retail prices, lower store sales volumes, lower store profits and higher business failures," Smith said.

The majority of justices, however, considered other factors in deciding to overturn existing antitrust law and once again allowing manufacturers and retailers to agree on minimum prices. They said in their ruling that allowing the practice would provide some stores with more profits that may "give consumers more options to choose among low- price, low-service brands; high-price, high-service brands; and brands falling in between."

Price Fixing Vs. Brand Maintenance

EBay's chief lobbyist, Tod Cohen, blames the decision on the makeup of the current court. He said the court, dominated by conservative justices, sided with big-business interests "versus traditional antitrust doctrine which has been far more of a progressive value rather than a conservative value."

When critics refer to the practice of setting minimum prices, they call it price fixing. But Jerry Kohl, the owner of Leegin, calls it "brand maintenance." He says it's important his independent retailers don't start undercutting each other's prices and cheapening the Brighton brand.

Kohl also dismisses dire predictions that the Supreme Court decision will raise prices for consumers and put small retailers out of business.

"You want to see how it's affected prices =97 walk into Neiman's today," Kohl said. "Almost the entire store is on sale. So, obviously not much has changed."

Of course, there is a deep recession under way. Still, Kohl says his case changed only one thing.

"Now it's not automatically illegal for people to talk about setting prices, before it was automatically illegal," he says.

Proposed Legislation

Now, if a retailer thinks price-setting is unfair, it can take a manufacturer to court. In legal language, this is called the "rule of reason." Critics, however, say few retailers actually would go to the expense and headache of filing such a lawsuit.

"To think about bringing a case like that against a giant with enormous resources is really unrealistic," said Seth Bloom, senior counsel of the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights. "So it's nice to say, in an academic way, rule of reason is available, but I think this is about what practically happens in the marketplace."

That's one reason Bloom's boss, Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI), is sponsoring legislation that bypasses the Supreme Court ruling and makes all price- setting by manufacturers illegal again.

[B A R R Y]

I hate price increases...

However, I do have to admit that McFeeley's has a very open and classy way of going about it.

[B A R R Y]

Shhhh...

Don't give the corporate folks ideas. I work for a company that would probably try this!

You walk to the mailbox and open the first letter:

"Dear Joe Smith,

We value your business, as nothing is more important than our customers.

We value you so much, that we will allow you the opportunity to remit $120 ($10/mo. x 12 months) for a retroactive price increase, for the exciting service we provided to you last year.

Failure to pay will result in damage to your credit history and immediate disconnection from current service.

Thanks for Choosing..."

[nailshooter41]

SNIP

On the other hand, I would think that the easiest way to get around that is to sign an iron clad agreement that said that the supplier/ manufacturer's agreement with the seller was founded on the idea that they sold the product of the company. You would not be in independent businessman simply purchasing goods for resale. This is how the old MLM guys did it in the 90s.

If you sold vitamins, personal alarms, water purifiers and all the other stuff that was sold by the MLM guys, you were simply representing the interests of the parent company, even if you sold other goods. You had no price control at all, and in the event of your demise as a rep, they bought back the remaining supplies at pennies on the dollar. Although many did, you weren't supposed to discount their product price in any way under your agreement to rep for them.

Robert

[salty]

Good plan in this economy!

[Bored Borg]

On Sat, 6 Dec 2008 20:35:07 +0000, Jay Pique wrote (in article ):

Oh.. that'll probably take their stuff out of reach of the average bloke, then.

[Robatoy]

... yup. But seriously, I don't think that's the market they're after.

[Upscale]

Well, with a recession in the works, the wealth are the only ones that are going to have money to spend anyway. Might as well market to them.

[-MIKE-]

Especially after their taxes go up so much, they have to lay off employees to afford their Festool(s).