But the actual process as described involves an algorithm operated by a third party varying an organization's price, a representative of that company being required to communicate their acceptance or disagreement with reasons to the third party, the staff member with that executive responsibility being encouraged to speak to a representative of the third party, and escalate to unspecified management only in the case a "dispute" is not resolved by that third party.
That's not at all similar to how a regular approval process works with even the most junior staff members, and the idea it applies only to front of house staff is entirely your invention.
Every member of every unlawful cartel ever had senior decision makers who chose to sign up to the cartel and could tell it to bugger off or make the odd exception. That doesn't mean they can't be accused of price fixing in the event they take the decision to delegate day to day pricing to an organization also setting their competitors' prices, or even worse involve them in the approval chain for exceptions to those prices.
This is ultimately all I'm arguing. I'm entirely in agreement the relationship between RP and a significant chunk of the market, and the fact they're naming the pricing strategy as coordinated sounds exactly like price fixing.
But, requiring a manager to approve a change in pricing, that isn't odd. That singular thing, that's all I'm talking about, because that's what I originally replied to here.
> > await approval
> Sure seems like RealPage is price fixing then
Awaiting approval from your manager to change the price is not evidence of price fixing. Do you disagree with this basic premise?
Ownership/management chooses to buy RealPage for their property management solution for a building. They decide to configure it and contract out Pricing Advisor services. They've now established the default prices are whatever RealPage suggests it should be.
They then hire a lot of leasing agents (or they hire a leasing agency who hires these people). These are front of line sales people. These people are getting the day to day updates on changes to these prices, which are supposedly algorithmically generated. These are the people you'd want to review these prices, because these are the people who are actually dealing with the day to day of trying to sell these units. If these prices that the advisor is suggesting are unreasonable, they should probably push back and make a recommendation to change the price. They're the ones hearing customers argue the prices are overpriced and what not, they're a bit closer to the ground truth of the price in many ways.
However, those front line workers probably should not have arbitrary pricing powers. They're just focusing on signing leases, not necessarily broader picture of the building's business.
So talking about the approval process (which was the whole point I was originally replying to, not the algorithmic pricing or the whole weird relationship of RP to lessors which I've agreed should be investigated), lets just remove the whole algorithmic side of things. Upper management said units lease for $2/sqft. Front of line leasing agent decides to start signing leases for $1.75/sqft. Should that front of line leasing agent have been able to change the price from what upper management wanted without seeking an approval? Should they have probably given a written reason for going against the established pricing structure upper management chose?
So now lets enter back the idea of the algorithmic pricing. Upper management likes this dynamic algorithmic pricing. They say, whatever the algorithm sets, that's the price today. Algorithm says $2/sqft. Front of line leasing agent thinks a more realistic price is $1.75/sqft. Should that front of line leasing agent just be able to arbitrarily decide what the price is without seeking some approval? Ultimately, that review isn't some RP agent; that review is the same manager as before.
I think you're conflating the people with pricing authority on the call with the Pricing Advisor and the people who would often be submitting pricing changes for approvals. If they're having to get the pricing change approved by their management, then by definition they didn't have pricing authority. The people with pricing authority are the ones who made the decision to use this whole Pricing Advisor system, and are continuing to allow the Pricing Advisor use their black box to tell them what the price is today. The ones on that call are the ones that can tell RP to bugger off, as by definition they have pricing authority.
I do agree the algorithmic pricing is weird, and a lot of markets don't behave this way. I do think there's some bad relationships what with the pricing advisors and the large market presence of RP. These things should be investigated and potentially have judgements against. The fact its literally saying "coordinated algorithmic pricing" is a major red flag there's something bad happening here. The "coordinated" part is the part is the thing that's bad, not that front of line employees need approvals to change prices or even just the basic idea of using algorithms to set prices.