RWB Announces New Unilateral Retail Pricing Policy
Race Winning Brands (RWB), the Mentor, Ohio based owner of Wiseco, JE Piston, Rekluse and a slew of other performance parts manufacturers, has announced that it is taking its pricing policy to a whole new level.
As part of its war on counterfeiters and its support of the mainstream 'Brick and Mortar' powersports industry dealer network and all levels of its resellers, including its distributos, RWB will transition to a Unilateral Retail Pricing Policy.
Cary Redman, Vice President of Sales and Category Management for RWB, says that "the implementation of Minimum Retail Price (MRP) for our portfolio of brands is aimed at addressing challenges such as counterfeit product sales, advertising and selling practices that focus solely on price.
"The decision to move from a MAP (Minimum Advertised Price) Policy to the Unilateral Pricing Policy is a strategic response to protect the investments made by our valued partners (distributors, dealers and engine builders) and other resellers who contribute significantly to educating the consumers of all levels about RWB products.
"This move is driven by a desire to ensure fair competition, discourage practices that solely promote products based on price, and maintain the overall reputation of quality and innovation associated with RWB brands."
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| Cary Redman: "Driven by a desire to ensure fair competition, this move discourages practices that solely promote products based on price." |
The effective date for implementation of the new policy will be June 1st, 2024 and see RWB adopt a Minimum Retail Price (MRP) as part of its Unilateral Pricing Policy.
Redman cites counterfeit product sales and resellers' advertising practices based solely on price as reasons that have been identified as factors "potentially detrimental to RWB's quality reputation and the efforts of its resellers."
The change aims to address these issues and provide support for the resellers that make significant investments in educating the public, training staff and providing customer support. "We are committed to supporting these efforts to maintain the reputation of RWB products and to protect and promote the interests of the loyal resellers who are invested in our products for the long-term."
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| "The new policy is intended to defend brand integrity and investments in innovations such as the new APEX manual performance clutch that has just been released by Rekluse." |
Failure to abide by the new pricing and selling policies may result in various consequences, including loss of privileges related to RWB's intellectual properties, referrals for RWB products, customer pricing discount levels and the overall ability to purchase RWB's products.
RWB says it will have distributed the complete details of the MRP policy on May 1st, 2024, allowing resellers time to adapt to the changes before the effective date. "RWB will still allow its valued partners to run limited promotions with proper approval - additional information will be shared in the new policies."