Resale Price Maintenance

Resale price maintenance (RPM) is the practice whereby a manufacturer and its distributors agree that the distributors will sell the manufacturer's product at certain prices (resale price maintenance), at or above a price floor (minimum resale price maintenance) or at or below a price ceiling (maximum resale price maintenance). If a reseller refuses to maintain prices, either openly or covertly (see grey market), the manufacturer may stop doing business with it.

Resale price maintenance prevents resellers from competing too fiercely on price, especially with regard to fungible goods. Otherwise, resellers worry it could drive down profits for themselves as well as for the manufacturer. Some argue that the manufacturer may do this because it wishes to keep resellers profitable, thus keeping the manufacturer profitable. Others contend that minimum resale price maintenance, for instance, overcomes a failure in the market for distributional services by ensuring that distributors who invest in promoting the manufacturer's product are able to recoup the additional costs of such promotion in the price that they charge consumers. Some manufacturers also defend resale price maintenance by saying it ensures fair returns, both for manufacturer and reseller and that governments do not have the right to interfere with freedom to make contracts without very good reason. Governments can sometimes be seen as upholding price controls as in the case of CD WOW!. When a Minimum Resale Price is set on a product, it is easy for consumers to find that product's lowest price. That makes shopping much easier. Two non-competing sellers of any offer (not just a manufacturer's product) can set a Minimum Resale Price on it.