Legal Question in Consumer Law in Wisconsin

Price Competition, Wholesalers, Fair Trade

While I am hardly an expert on the pricing of plumbing supplies, in a free economy pricing is generally not regulated. Any seller can therefore sell to any customer at whatever price they negotiate. Your remedy if you don't like one seller's price is to find a different seller. Obviously, this would be different in a communist economy such as Cuba's, where the government sells everything and controls all pricing. This tends to cause other problems such as oversupply or undersupply of product, since government pricing can never be as efficient as private market pricing. Obviously, if the government sets a price that is too low, no suppliers will sell to them and they will not have goods to sell at that price. Hence buyers in Cuba face empty shelves at their stores and long lines for the few items which are available. In the Soviet Union's failed attempt at a planned economy, all aspects of manufacturing and supply were government controlled. That resulted in production of many goods which were unwanted and unneeded and underproduction of those which were needed. Ultimately, the entire system crashed because there was no profit incentive to efficiently drive the demand and supply chain. There are some pricing regulations in WI, as well as some federal regulations, regarding fair trade and competition which I would be happy to research for you if I were representing you. However, off the top of my head, I do not know why differential pricing for bigger/smaller/quicker paying customers would be illegal--rather it is capitalism at work. A seller might, for example, sacrifice some profit margin in order to get a larger order from a bigger customer because that might still produce a higher net profit for the wholesaler regardless of the discount. Another option for you, of course, is to become a wholesaler yourself or form a cooperative with other small plumbers in order to get the better pricing which might otherwise be reserved for higher volume customers.

Re: plumbing wholesale pricing

If you were my client, I would suggest setting up a new LLC and making a RFP with this company and see where their prices came in. This may also raise Federal fair trade law issues. Call or email for further assistance.