The line that matters
- A recommended retail price is perfectly lawful. You may publish an RRP and you may recommend it.
What you may not do is make it stick. The CMA has been explicit that an RRP imposed through threats or financial incentives is still resale price maintenance. Cutting off a reseller for discounting, withholding rebates, applying pressure. All of these convert a lawful recommendation into an unlawful agreement.
- This is not a technicality. In one case the CMA fined a light fittings supplier £2.7 million for requiring retailers to use a minimum price when selling online. Fines can reach 10 per cent of worldwide turnover, and they rise where the CMA finds the breach was deliberate.
Why the American advice is dangerous here
Most content you will find on this subject is written for the United States, where minimum advertised price policies are broadly lawful under the Colgate doctrine. A US brand can publish a minimum advertised price and unilaterally refuse to supply those who breach it.
Transplant that to the UK and you have designed a competition law breach. The same agency deck that works in Texas is a liability in Birmingham. Brands are still handed MAP enforcement programmes by agencies who have not checked which side of the Atlantic they are operating on.
What you can lawfully do
- Choose who you supply. You are not obliged to sell to anyone. Selective distribution, properly constructed, is lawful and is the strongest tool you have.
- Set terms that are not about price: condition of goods, packaging, customer service standards, channel.
- Control your own price. Your offer is yours to set. Owning the Buy Box means the price customers see is the one you chose.
- Reduce the number of sellers through supply, rather than through pressure about price.
- Monitor, so you know what is happening before your stockists tell you.
- The practical route to price integrity in the UK is almost never enforcement. It is controlling the channel so there are fewer hands between you and the customer, and owning the offer so your price is the visible one.
What we do
- Map where the discounting starts. Usually it is one or two sources, not the dozen sellers you can see.
- Review the supply terms so what you have in place is lawful and actually does something.
- Monitor pricing across the catalogue, with alerts rather than quarterly surprises.
- Own the offer, so the price on the page is yours.
- Say no to the things that would get you fined, which is the part you are actually paying for.
We are not a law firm and we do not give legal advice. We do know where the line is, and we will tell you when something you have been advised to do sits on the wrong side of it.
Questions
So we just have to accept being undercut?
No. You have to stop trying to solve it by controlling other people's prices, and start solving it through supply and through owning the Buy Box. That works, and it is lawful.
Our distributor agreement already has a minimum price clause.
Then it is worth having someone look at it. Clauses like that are common and are frequently unenforceable at best.
Can we cut off a reseller who keeps discounting?
This is exactly where brands get into trouble. Refusing supply can be lawful, but doing it because of price can be evidence of an unlawful agreement. It depends on the facts and it is worth taking advice.
Does Amazon help with this?
Not in the way brands hope. Amazon will suppress your featured offer for being uncompetitive, which works against you, not for you.