Why iPods are never on sale

The graphic with this post is a screenshot I captured while browsing Amazon's 'Year End Deals' section. Boy, they have a great deal on the 80 gig iPod, don't they? You save 99 cents! And despite my sarcasm, that actually is probably one of the best deal you're going to find on iPods this holiday season.

Why don't retailers price iPods more aggressively? I mean, iPods are pretty much the same price no matter where you get them, so there is very little reason to shop around for them (and stores want you to shop around).

Sean Cooper, writing for Slate, gets to the bottom of this mystery and finds that the answer is: MAP (minimum advertised price). This is a price which is set by Apple and if a vendor complies with this price they get some money to advertise their iPod wares from Apple. However, if they go below that price they can kiss that money goodbye. Why would Apple do this? Well, you might recall that Apple makes a good deal of money selling its own wares in the Apple stores. Imagine if a big box store (Best Buy or Circuit City) could undercut Apple's price. Everyone would be buying iPods from them and no one would be shopping at those nice Apple stores.