There’s the funny old thing with Guitar/Music shops.
The retailers complain about the discount merchants - so their big accounts try to resolve it.
The discount merchants are in a race to make the least margin. Usually from a web store rather than shop front.
The customers want top notch service and an opportunity to try before they buy...but don’t want to pay what they perceive to be over the odds.
It’s a lose/lose situation for everyone.
When in the trade, my colleagues and I used to tear our hair out over it.
We used to have people come in and try things, ask if we’d match a price which was £4 profit on an £800 sale...was very disheartening.
They’d purchase the same instrument online, and come to us when there was a problem - and then be dissatisfied with the fact that as a Fender/Gibson/Epiphone dealership, we wouldn’t sort the problems they were experiencing as warranty repair.
Also that we wouldn’t resolve an issue with a Fender bought from Thomann in Germany by sending it to Fender GBI to fix...for free.
The list goes on, I’m not sure that price fixing or MAP pricing is the pure evil it’s made out to be.
But I’ve seen both sides.