Manufacturers usually see this as a boon. In the premium cigar industry, for example, there were three gigantic mail order companies that ate up most of the ac

Manufacturers usually see this as a boon. In the premium cigar industry, for example, there were three gigantic mail order companies that ate up most of the action in the 90s: Thompson, Mike's, and JR. JR would DEEPLY discount a lot of their merchandise, squeezing both local shops and other online retailers in the process. Some manufacturers proudly proclaimed that they were not in the business of discounting their product, and there were even entire lines created to sell solely to offline realtors aka the local shops. When the USSC ruled that manufacturers had a right to set the prices for their products, suddenly there was a lot more competition in the online market. The big discounters still got a lion's share of business, but it wasn't impenetrable like it used to be. The flip side is that some of the smaller guys came up with the idea of password protected member's only sites with discounted prices which were impossible for the bigger guys to duplicate because of their volume.