Except the stores are the ones who set the prices. The supplier can offer a suggested retail price, but stores are not usually beholden to those, if they are willing to cut into their own margin.
I mean it varies. That definitely exists, but that’s not the only way (or even the majority way).
For one thing, most big box stores don’t actually own the product on their shelves. They basically rent shelf space to the supplier and only when the product is purchased do both sides get the cut. Walmart can’t arbitrarily lower prices on some (most) items because it’s literally not theirs.
This set up greatly simplifies a lot of the retail flow, so it’s more and more common (at least in the US). It’s mostly smaller stores that are ordering in product and in that case your example is correct.
Steam effectively does the same thing. They offer to list your game and then only get paid when it sells (minus some overhead fees). They aren’t pre-purchasing copies to do with what they want. And part of that contract is that they will list your game, but only if it’s the lowest price or tied for the lowest price. Otherwise you’re free to go elsewhere.
Which is again, because being available on Steam provides value itself and they aren’t interested in helping you cut them out the profits by undercutting the price you listed it for there. Which, explicitly is just an attempt to get the benefit of Steam without paying Steam’s fees. Otherwise all of these games would just never list on Steam at all. Nobody is preventing that. If they allowed this, more and more people would behave like people do today with bookstores, where they look for a book at the store, but walk out and buy it on Amazon instead.
Except the stores are the ones who set the prices. The supplier can offer a suggested retail price, but stores are not usually beholden to those, if they are willing to cut into their own margin.
I mean it varies. That definitely exists, but that’s not the only way (or even the majority way).
For one thing, most big box stores don’t actually own the product on their shelves. They basically rent shelf space to the supplier and only when the product is purchased do both sides get the cut. Walmart can’t arbitrarily lower prices on some (most) items because it’s literally not theirs.
This set up greatly simplifies a lot of the retail flow, so it’s more and more common (at least in the US). It’s mostly smaller stores that are ordering in product and in that case your example is correct.
Steam effectively does the same thing. They offer to list your game and then only get paid when it sells (minus some overhead fees). They aren’t pre-purchasing copies to do with what they want. And part of that contract is that they will list your game, but only if it’s the lowest price or tied for the lowest price. Otherwise you’re free to go elsewhere.
Which is again, because being available on Steam provides value itself and they aren’t interested in helping you cut them out the profits by undercutting the price you listed it for there. Which, explicitly is just an attempt to get the benefit of Steam without paying Steam’s fees. Otherwise all of these games would just never list on Steam at all. Nobody is preventing that. If they allowed this, more and more people would behave like people do today with bookstores, where they look for a book at the store, but walk out and buy it on Amazon instead.