Why do shops keep promoting this Recommended Retail Prices (RRP's) crap?

[Kev]

I know what Recommended Retail Prices are. They are the suggested prices which distributors suggest so that advertisers can then sell them for slightly cheaper and tell customers they are getting a bargain. It's deceptive and manipulative but who really pays attention.

Take www.play.com for example. Every new game which comes out for the Xbox 360 or the Playstation 3 sells for £39.99 (or cheaper). Yet every game has RRP £49.99 underneath the game and Play run promotions saying that you save £10 on certain games (they're doing this just now for Tiger Woods 09).

Seriously, why do they bother with the RRP stuff, who are they conning. Every major shop sells new games for £39.99. I'm sure there are some shops that sell them for more but I doubt they are selling many. Is it really worth them promoting and advertising this RRP crap for the 1% of the nation that don't know what they're doing.

I know this isn't exclusive to the UK. As far as I'm aware most western countries use RRP (or an equivalent). Surely we are at the point where most people are aware of how this works so it defeats the purpose of using it (or perhaps I'm wrong to assume that most people are aware of it).

Rant Over

[retrogarden]

It's very true. I doubt I've seen anything at the RRP for a while now. However, you only really see it online (not in HMV, Game etc.), which makes you think why price comparison sites haven't done much about it? Probably because the margins are too low (Amazon are generally cheaper, but Play deliver on release date and have free delivery).

[Bex]

I've noticed that with Play as well. Memory sticks for the PSP mainly, recommended retail price, £99.99, but we're selling it for £29.99 save £60........which to some extent is true, high street shops, will sell them for that. The above being an 8GB card example. But a 4GB, is I believe like £70 RRP, but being sold for £50 in Game....£25 on Play or summit, cheaper, but, their RRP always seems way off to me.
I'm sure they keep the RRP price that it originally came out for and don't update it when price cuts are global (I'm 99% sure I've seen it on there lol).