How Apple sets its prices
Comparison-shopping for new electronics can be fun and addictive. With a bit of patience, some luck, and an eye for good deals, you can find everything from TV sets to hard drives at a significant discount. In fact, in our economy, discounts are one of the primary mechanisms that retailers use to compete against each other.
But all bets are off if you happen to be in the market for a product made by Apple: Both iOS devices and Macs seem to be impervious to the discount game. In fact it’s so rare to find a significant price variance between retailers that, when it does happen, the event usually draws considerable press coverage.
House advantage
With so many laws regulating competition among retailers, how does Apple pull off this amazing feat? It turns out that the company uses a fairly straightforward strategy, known as price maintenance, that takes advantage of the popularity of its products and exploits a quirk in the way retailers are allowed to advertise their merchandise.
Most products move from manufacturers to retailers through a network of distributors. Even though each product has a “manufacturer suggested retail price” (MSRP), each retailer is free to set its own sale price. Thus, a laptop with an MSRP of $500 might cost the retailer $250 to buy, and might carry a sticker price of $350, accompanied by a bold "30% Off!" announcement in the store’s weekly flyer. A different retailer might offer an even lower price to attract more store traffic, or conversely it find itself in a weaker position due to lower sales volume and have to charge its customers more for the product.
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