Sony borrowed from the SURE program in its digital camera...

Sony borrowed from the SURE program in its digital camera line to try to bring price stability to TVs (CED Feb 28 p1), a company spokesman told Consumer Electronics Daily. “Sony Electronics is placing all 2012 EX- and HX- series Bravia televisions on its SURE unilateral pricing program when they ship,” he said. In addition, models from the 2011 line -- the XBR-55/65HX929, KDL-65HX729 and KDL-60EX720 -- will also be placed on the SURE program beginning April 1, he said. “Our objective is to provide a consistent business opportunity for retailers to get behind Sony,” he said. The policy, which applies to all dealers, was put in place “to make it easier for retailers to do business with Sony,” he told us, saying the program has been “successfully deployed for years” with Sony’s Alpha and E-Mount digital cameras. Sony will enforce the policy through a third-party organization to monitor pricing in the market, he said. Also, resellers “may forward potential SURE violations directly to Sony,” he said. Dealers we spoke to at the HES Summit in Orlando were supportive of the move. “I'm all for it,” said Bjorn Dybdahl, owner of Bjorn’s in San Antonio, Texas. The unified pricing policies Sony and Samsung are promising “could be a positive for us,” Dybdahl said. The underlying issue, he said, is enforcement. “It’s up to them to make sure it works,” he said. “If I abide by the rules and they enforce it, it’s a win-win-win for everybody,” he said. Recently, the only winner in the chain has been the consumer, he said. Regarding whether customers will pay more for TVs in the age of year-round Black Friday pricing, Dybdahl said, “We're still in business because we're able to get a little more money for the product. When everybody’s on an equal footing, it comes down to how good we are as a retailer in servicing the customer,” he said. “If a TV is going to cost more than a similar TV from two months ago, I don’t think it’s going to be a big deal,” Dybdahl said. Vance Pflanz, owner of Pflanz Electronics in Sioux City, Iowa, said Sony’s SURE pricing on ES series audio products has worked “pretty well” and he hopes the same success translates to video. Despite shrinking video margins, Pflanz hasn’t been cutting back on TV sales. “We're working with manufacturers on select products with margin,” he said. Sony’s new $25,000 4K projector fits that bill, he said. Regarding past unsuccessful efforts by video suppliers to maintain unilateral pricing policies, Dybdahl of Bjorn’s said the situation is more serious now, which should make the policies stick. “I don’t think they were losing as much money in the past,” he said. When you have large, large companies losing the amounts of money being lost, what’s their choice?” Another company, which he declined to name, has been working for “months and months” on a profitable pricing strategy, he said. “If they don’t enforce it, then the credibility is gone, and it could very well mean the demise of some vendors.” And that’s the reason Jim Ristow, executive vice president of Home Entertainment Source, believes the policies will work, he told us. It comes down to “fortitude,” Ristow said. “The financial realities many companies are facing if they don’t do this,” make it a necessity to enforce the policies, he said. “Before it was, ‘we should do this.’ Now it’s, ‘we need to do this.'”