There you go! They are being told what to sell it at by innokin. Your shops work around is to offer a cupon.
Others are just ignoring the company now.
They want to keep the MSRP high so they can sell it to their re-sellers at a high price.
I believe this practice is considered illegal in the US (price fixing) but I don care about that. I just like the factthat we are now getting a true free market price for this product here in the US. And we can thank a Chinese importer for that
MSRP is not price fixing, It is a suggested price that you sell it for retail so that you can get a decent profit margin between what you bought it for and what you sell it for.
Let's say these things cost $5.00 a piece to make. Innokin may sell them at $10.00 a piece in small volume and maybe at $7.00 a piece in large volumes.
Bottom line, once the unit leaves the factory, Innokin gets no more money from the final sale of the unit and has no interest what the final price to the consumer is.
If a guy moves a million units at a dollar over what he paid or a guy sells 1000 units at 1000 dollars over what he paid. Both guys made a million dollars profit. If anything, Innokin would prefer the million unit seller to succeed because Innokin makes more money from the million unit mover than the 1000 unit mover. You don't see Black and Decker screaming bloody murder because it sells it's products 20% cheaper than mom and pop hardware store. Black and Decker makes it's money selling to Wal-Mart at a lower per unit price but higher volume.
This is why it makes no sense that Innokin would go after Fasttech. Fasttech would be one of Innokin's higest volume dealer. If Joe Blow at "mysuperexpensivevapestore.com" gets peeved because Fasttech can sell them half the price as Joe, can, Innokin doesn't give a rip because Joe Blow is buying 1/1000th the units Fasttech is buying.
The
ONLY reason Innokin would go after one of it's highest volume resellers is if the reseller was using Innokin's name to sell Non-Innokin product.
If someone is passing off Non-Innokin product, as Innokin product, not only does this product have the potential of damaging Innokin's reputation and name, it also considers each of these units as a lost sale of an authentic unit.
I had an issue when I was working in the King County Library. Microsoft was donating software to use on our computers and they would audit our systems. They discovered that the "authentic" Microsoft Mice we were using were indeed counterfeit. They even showed us how to identify the fakes from the real ones. It appears that Microsoft had ended it's relationship with one of it's manufacturing partners (In China no less) and the manufacturing partner did not destroy the molds and proceeded to make a bunch of fake Microsoft Mice and continue selling them as legit.
It is MUCH more likely that a similar issue happened with Innokin. Innokin probably ended it's relationship with one of it's fabricating houses, and now that fab house is selling the knockoffs directly to Fasttech and keeping Innokin out of the loop. This would make sense as the fabricating house would have all the molds and materials needed to make an "authentic" looking product, right down to the box and manual.
The problem is, that without Innokin in the loop, the fabricating house can now install it's own level of quality control, and if it so desires, even cheapen out on the materials since there is no official Innokin oversight as to adherence to it's specs. The fabricator can even swap out lower capacity batteries. They don't care...The box says Innokin, so that's who the end user will blame.
THAT's Why Innokin wants these off the street. Not some conspiracy theory price fixing mumbo jumbo.
