Also, how will this ruling affect online auctions? Will those sellers be allowed to discount?

First of all, manufacturers are not required to set a firm or minimum retail price for their products. This decision just gives them the option to do so. Saying that “the suggested retail price is now the actual price” is not accurate. This is only the case if the manufacturer decides to do so.

When an item is sold at the store, the manufacturer does not make more money if it is sold at a higher price. The store already bought the item from the manufacturer at wholesale, so the manufacturer does not benefit from higher retail prices. In fact, most manufacturers do better when the retail price is discounted, because that means that more items are sold. For this reason, I believe that for most items, this decision won’t have an impact.

So why would any manufacturer decide to set a minimum price? One reason would be to protect small businesses that sell their product. Some manufacturers will decide that they want to set a minimum price so that Wal-mart cannot sell products below the cost of smaller stores. Like I said, I don’t think most manufacturers will do this, because it will hurt overall sales of their product. But if some manufacturers decide they want to do this with their own products, I don’t have a problem with it. If the price is too high, I won’t buy it.

By the way, this decision also allows manufacturers to set a maximum price if they choose, preventing retail stores from price gouging popular items.