Back in the day, with only a few outlets, it was hard to get something less than MSRP.
Ummm... no. Not even remotely close.
I find it strange and mildly amusing how so many people in this thread have positioned themselves as experts on this, and have subscribed to some kind of fantasy that before the 1990's that everyone paid MSRP and that we now live in an enlightened internet-powered wonderland of rampant competition and low low prices. These must be people who weren't alive much in the last century.
This comment breaks the guidelines by being snarky and shallow. It would be much better to instead provide some information about what the world is/was actually like (in your experience). How did pricing vis-a-vis MSRP actually work? What do you actually remember about it? This would be much more interesting than just directing belittling rhetoric at someone else for getting it wrong (in your experience).
I spent many years shopping in the last century. The best you could do for price comparison was to scour local paper for deals at nearby stores, or if you were lucky, the sears catalog.
You didn’t have instant access to the best worldwide price.
International shipping took a lot longer and was more expensive back then. I remember going through computer parts catalogs in the mid '90s to find the best prices for the parts I needed to assemble a new desktop.
Ummm... no. Not even remotely close.
I find it strange and mildly amusing how so many people in this thread have positioned themselves as experts on this, and have subscribed to some kind of fantasy that before the 1990's that everyone paid MSRP and that we now live in an enlightened internet-powered wonderland of rampant competition and low low prices. These must be people who weren't alive much in the last century.