M.A.P. - Minimum Advertised Pricing Policy
Some manufacturers (such as Evolis, Fargo, Zebra, and others) have a Minimum Advertised Pricing (MAP) policy that we are contractually required to not "advertise" their product below a specific price. This is a required contract with these suppliers for us to resell their products. There is quite a bit of controversy about what part of an Internet eStore represents an "advertisement" and what part of the eStore is an actual offer to buy or in essence, a "commercial transaction". Some recent legal rulings by the US Circuit Courts and FTC rulings MAY shed more light upon this subject as they seem to agree that an encrypted shopping cart on a website MAY be construed as an offer to buy and thus a commercial transaction - not applicable to these MAP agreements.
There is currently no mechanism to display the correct discounted pricing in the open on our website within the constraints of our agreement with these manufacturers.
Since our "Advertised Pricing" is available on our website to the general public even though our selling prices may be quite lower (much lower in most cases), we have implemented a special secure web site for viewing the ACTUAL prices that we will charge.
Once you enter the item into our SSL protected "secure shopping cart", you are considered to have entered our "online retail storefront" and are no longer on our "advertising website", therefore the agreement is upheld, but you also see the actual lower pricing.
Our shopping cart website is secure and may require a password for you to enter our "online retail store" and view the discounted pricing schedule for these and other products.
In order to receive the most current special pricing, you may call one of our friendly sales associates at 1-800-519-8800 to discuss the particular make and model you are interested in acquiring, you may place the item in your secure SSL Encrypted shopping cart, or you may sign up for an online account with our secure shopping site requesting your username and password to enter the discounted pricing section of our websites.
We use 128 bit SSL Encrypted Comodo eCommerce Server Certificate to secure ALL transactions between your desktop and our offices. Your information is securely transmitted over this "tunnel" through the Internet directly from your PC to our server and is not viewable by anyone during transit.
Customers that make purchases from any Artemis Solutions Group website will have their account name and password automatically emailed to them so that they may see the most current special pricing.
I wish to personally thank you for your patience and consideration in this matter as we endeavor to uphold our contractual obligations to our suppliers, our legal obligations under these distribution contracts and yet still attempt to provide the lowest possible cost to our customers.
Please feel free to contact me directly if you have any questions regarding our MAP pricing policy.
James Childers
CEO ASG Global Inc DBA Artemis Solutions Group