Many manufacturers have MAP guidelines so that they don't get to be perceived as bargain basement providers. Some (e.g. Bose) also require that their products be excluded from all storewide discounts.
They have high affinity and a premium value and want to protect that.
Sam claimed that they posted what they think is a reasonable discount. That's not for him to decide. If I'm as popular as Bi-Rite, I don't consider 33% a reasonable discount for my product.
Imagine the business had started this way: You have lots of friends who like to do the kind of stuff they're promoting. You have some guy in the group who is willing to call around and bargain. We'll fill 10 tables @ 4pm tomorrow if you give us the free appetizers & desert. Then he decides to create a scalable process for this kind of bargaining to happen. That might look similar to the business they're building here.
The fact that this happens in the open has significant potential to devalue the brand.
Under very specific conditions, I will do free or discounted consulting. But I don't want "free" or $25/hour associated with my brand when someone does a Google search.
That's a much broader net than this specific issue.
Run of the mill coupon websites have been associating businesses with coupon/discount verbiage for a long time, some even profitably.
To be clear, where do you stand on verbiage such as "If x people vote to request a 50% off coupon at Premium Brand, we will talk to Premium Brand."
Personally I have no problem with this - it may screw up the premium brand when it comes to SEO but that is Team Google's problem to improve search quality.
b) Please try doing this with Bose and Apple. Let me know how it works out.
