Some manufacturers most certainly offer special deals to there largest clients. While in retail years ago, there were many times, normally a month or so before NAMM that one of these mass retailer would advertise a crazy low price on what we thought was still a current product only to find out later (many times having just ordered some at regular price) that it had been discontinued and the remaining inventory was sold in total at a huge discount to the mass retailer. The independent dealers were not even given the chance to purchase. And I'm sorry to say that over the years there were times that I saw the same thing happen from the manufacturers side while working at several different companies. But that was rare and most of the time we did offer the deal to all dealers and one company actually would do price adjusting of recently purchased but prior to the blowout product so I don't feel too bad.

You are correct that the largest of the catalog/online dealers can sometimes demand a volume discount. One of the mass merchandisers that has been mentioned in this thread actually demands exclusivity of a certain products or brands even telling the manufacturer where that product will be manufactured in order to undercut other stores. That's pretty screwed up if you ask me.

Dave

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Wm. David McMahan
LearnMyKeyboard
JazzItUp Band
The Modulators