Steve@carolinabreezehvac writes:

As far as pricing...no one tells me what I can or cant sell my
equipment for. I had one company that sent me a C+D letter one time,
and I replied back with an up yours....and never heard back from them
again.

Well, good for you. I suppose you must have had alternative suppliers
available if they cut you off for discounting. But it illustrates my
point that the mfrs are
constantly pulling these price-maintenance stunts, mostly illegal
nowadays. Nothing remarkable that the HVAC biz does it.

Maybe you are old enough to remember the "fair trade" laws (which were
in truth the opposite of fair) up until the 1960s, made it *illegal* to
charge less than list price.

When I sold a very popular line of PCs in upstate New York in the early
1980s, they literally had an Italian mob guy (yes, named "Tony") that
came around and "leaned" on you if you were suspected of charging less
than list price. He wanted me to succeed and be wealthy selling these
high-tech products made in California, but not at a discount. These
kinds of "interpersonal skills" seem to be valuable in the "independent
manufacturer's representative" line of work. And you thought it was all
Dale Carnegie hail-fellow-well-met win-friends-and-influence-people
style.

People I know in kitchen appliance retailing, farm implements sales,
garage door repair, etc., have similar stories.