 |
| (Chiho Jeong/ Bloomberg) |
HD Guru reported that Samsung's UPP(Unilateral Price Policy) is going to be activated this spring on its mid to high-end TVs including Smart, 3D TV and OLED TV. What that means is online/offline retailers must sell Samsung TVs at a fixed price marked by Samsung. They are banned from selling or promoting Samsung products at discounts, which includes bundle packages. Samsung came up with a solution that they think it would help to break through the crisis. The LCD TV sales are going down and the rival brands are stiffening competition for Samsung with technology that is just as advanced: the sales of LG Cinema 3D TV jumped a lot in the US last year because of LG's aggressive campaign by highlighting the superiorities of its passive 3D TV vs Samsung's active 3D TV. Samsung's UPP, in theory would stabilize profit margins even if sales are affected slightly. It is highly likely that retailers and consumers will perceive this policy by Samsung as an attempt to take advantage of its position in the market. Maximizing profit by taking away the discretion of marketing and sales strategies of retailers and burdening the customers with higher prices is certainly not an admirable trait of a top manufacturer.
HD Guru has made attempts to contact Samsung for further commenting however a reply was ignored. HD Guru also asked the Senior VP Home Entertainment of LG USA and his reply was,
"LG’s first priority is to continue to assure that consumers understand the value that LG brings to their lives through our products. We worked hard last year to revitalize our MAP program to assist our retail partners in doing that. We’re very happy with what we’ve accomplished on that front, and we’ll continue our focus on our primary goal. We’ll also continue to monitor the marketplace, but at this time, we just don’t think it’s the right approach to insert ourselves in between our retail partners and their customers in terms of selling prices, which is what a UPP program does. LG doesn’t have any plans to put out such a policy.”
(Source: HD Guru)
