I had a scuba diving shop and while most of the brands carried had msrp and map (Minimum advertised price). Every once in a blue moon a vendor would get kinda uppity and launch this same shot over the proverbial bow of minimum allowable. What usually went on was two fold. 1. Some brick and mortar shop would get mad that bigger or online presences would sell at a discount. People would ask brick and mortar shop to price match and the owner didnt like the smaller margin. At 40% off I am guessing the smaller shops margin shrunk to less than 5% after price matching. And more than likely The product line has a poorly thought out reseller pricing tier that really sticks it to the smaller volume shops. This is usuallywhat is happening. Or 2. The accuquilt corporate sales were hurting the reseller because the pricing tier is not well thought out and the corporate sales were hurting their resellers and the resellers complained and said they wont support accuquilt as a product line any more.
I helped one of the dive industry manufacturers with their map/msrp policy and it forced minimum advertised pricing for everyone. Online, papers, magazines, etc all had one lowest price on non clearance products. But tht still allowed brick and mortar shops to have walk ins and sell to them at any price they wanted, because really it should be the resellers choice what margins they want to make in their own house. Online only shops had to meet the MAP pricing, and only in store sales could be priced lower. It meant the brick and mortar guys had freedom and the sandbox was the same for everyone when it came to advertising. We also reworked the tier pricing to be nicer to smaller shops and support smaller businesses.