Where an Advertised Price Starts and Where It Stops

An advertised price is a price the seller has spread widely. A price shown to one shopper at one shelf, or inside one cart, is usually just the price. That test, dissemination, is what a MAP policy has to be written against, and it decides which of a reseller’s numbers you can act on.

New York City’s item-pricing law defines “advertised price” in section 20-708.1 of its Administrative Code. The definition reads “the price of a stock keeping unit [SKU] which a retail store has caused to be disseminated by means of promotional methods”. Its examples are “an in-store sign, or newspaper, circular, television or radio advertising.” One word carries the definition. To disseminate is to spread widely. Pricing a reseller has pushed out to an audience is advertising. Pricing that sits where a shopper happens to find it is not.

Surfaces that are advertising

Flyers and circulars. Printed in quantity and distributed to reach as many people as possible. The prices in them are advertised prices.

Public address announcements. A discount read out over the store system is aimed at everyone in the building. Same intent as a radio spot, same answer.

Online ads and email. Banners, sponsored product placements on a marketplace, and email campaigns are advertising by construction. Any price inside them is an advertised price.

Storewide markdowns with signage. Signs posted through the store announcing a markdown are a promotion, so the marked price is advertised.

Surfaces that usually are not

Shelf labels and hang tags. A tag tells the shopper standing in front of the product what it costs. It informs. It has not been spread to an audience.

Markdowns shown only on the tag. If the store cut the price and the only evidence is the sticker, nothing has been disseminated. It is the price.

A markdown on one rack. This is the case that needs judgement. A sign over a single rack reaches the people already standing at it. Signage repeated around the store to pull people towards that rack is promotion. Where the line falls depends on how far the store pushed it.

The online cart is contested

Prices revealed only after a product is added to a cart get argued both ways, and we have not found a rule that settles it. That ambiguity is why “add to cart for price” and “call for price” listings exist at all. A seller who wants to go below your MAP without advertising below it uses the cart as the place the real number appears.

Your policy can take a position on in-cart prices. What you cannot assume is that the position goes unchallenged. Decide in advance whether you hold that line, or spend your enforcement budget elsewhere.

Before you write any of this down

We are not lawyers and none of this is legal advice. The answer turns on how your policy is drafted and where your resellers operate. In the US, a manufacturer’s unilateral decision about whom it keeps supplying has been treated differently from an agreement on price. That treatment dates from United States v. Colgate and Co., 250 U.S. 300 (1919). Resale price maintenance has been judged under the rule of reason since Leegin Creative Leather Products v. PSKS, 551 U.S. 877 (2007). Several states are stricter than federal law. Your counsel draws the boundary. We enforce the policy as written, and this is what that involves.