The cynic in me thinks the 'price in writing' price match is so that the price matching retailer can report retailers who dont abide by MAP. I dont disagree, b

The cynic in me thinks the 'price in writing' price match is so that the price matching retailer can report retailers who dont abide by MAP. I dont disagree, but it leads to scenarios like the above where arbitrage exists. I can buy something from Europe and then sell it on Reverb under MAP and still make a tidy profit. This sort of thing doesnt scale and introduces risk to me if I do that(how do you handle warranty claims, most gear is shipped with EU power cords so you have to buy US power cords to ship to customers, etc) For retailers, most do not have the resources to differentiate so 1 store selling for MAP is interchangeable with another. There are boutique stores that have passionate/knowledgeable staff that can guide less informed or newer customers. Sweetwater does this at scale, and I do buy from them for this reason when its something Im not completely up to speed on when I purchase. This is not an easy problem, but I do think an unofficial price floor is not good for the consumer. I also acknowledge that there are stores that will discount privately via chat or in person, but ironically Guitar Center was very inflexible on several items I wanted to purchase there in the last 5 or so years. I ended up going to smaller retailers.