In Bass Player’s product reviews and New Gear listings, what’s the difference between “street” price, “retail” price, and “list” price?
Ron Carlton, by e-mail

Retail and list pricing refer to the same thing: the price that a manufacturer suggests that a retailer set for its product, often called MSRP, or manufacturer’s suggested retail price. In practice, however, this price is almost always higher than the real selling price. Bass Player refers to a product’s typical selling price as its street price. In most cases, manufacturers provide us with both list and street pricing for their products. When manufacturers choose not to provide this data, we generally survey Internet retailers for an appropriate street price.

The gap between list pricing and street pricing is in part designed to create the illusion of a significant discount. Retailers often publish both prices, highlighting the magnanimity of their price difference, when in fact the selling price is often the minimum advertised price, or MAP, which is also set by the manufacturer. Is that price fixing—an illegal agreement between manufacturer and retailer to set a price? Not as long as the MSRP is “suggested” and the MAP is the “advertised” price. Under MAP agreements between manufacturers and retailers, retailers are free to charge what they want, as long as prices below MAP aren’t advertised.