On Fri, 16 Mar 2018 10:41:31 -0500, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet
wrote:

On 3/16/2018 2:22 AM, Bill wrote:
wrote:
On Thursday, March 15, 2018 at 10:39:37 PM UTC-5, Bill wrote:
wrote:

Just imagine if GM or Ford or Fiat told every car dealer selling
their brand that they will only sell the cars/trucks for the price
on the sticker.* No dickering, no bargaining with customers.* If you
do then your car dealer lot will be closed before the sun sets and
every car will be taken back and you will be sued in court.* I'm
guessing this is illegal in the USA for cars.* But somehow its
allowed for tools.


If they were the only tool supplier, I believe things would be
different.* Festool does not have a monopoly (except on Festool tools),
as there are plenty of suitably-equivalent tools.

Not sure what you mean.* Ford, GM, Fiat all make cars/trucks that
compete with each other.* Add in Honda, Nissan, Toyota, Subaru,
Hundai, Kia from Asia.* And add in BMW, Volkswagen, Mercedes, Audi,
Volvo from Europe.* No car dealer has a monopoly.* But you can and do
negotiate an individual price from every car dealer for every brand.
DeWalt, Makita, Milwaukee, Porter Cable all have different prices for
every tool from all the different vendors selling these brands.* Only
Festool has one price no matter who sells it.* It is the oddball out
here.

After rereading your post I think I might grasp what you are saying.
Maybe.* But how can Festool control its retailers and no other company
or product in the USA can exercise the same control?* If Festool
owned, controlled everyone who sells its products, then yes they can
dictate prices.* But all of the vendors for Festool are privately
owned businesses.

Yes, but evidently, if you wish to be a Festool dealer you have to
follow Festool's rules. I am not a lawyer, so I don't know anything
about the legality of fixing a uniform price.* Below you say that
Festool now owns SawStop.* I didn't realize that. It makes perfect sense
though to me, based upon the price-point of the products. Marketing will
be easier--"economies of scale", and all that...

The inventor/developer of the SawStop was a lawyer. I think the
monopoly thing is if the dealers agree to fix pricing and that is where
there problem comes in. They also probably sign a contract with the
manufacturer to sell at suggested retail or loose their license to sell
their products.

Correct. Both parties agree to the contract. What's the problem?