I understand supply and demand and market forces. I'm a fan of capitalism, but seriously, you can't possibly justify paying 800 dollars for 2500w
Why not?
The same principles I just stated apply.
For instance, the Manu has over head costs to run the company. The manu sells to a distributor (again w/ over head), Dist sells to retail outlets (more over head costs). Each time the price must be marked up to allow for both a reasonable flow in profit and still allow the product to remain reasonably priced to the consumer.
MAP pricing is a # set by the Manu to allow this trend to flow smoothly and to not gouge the price of the product.
The prices on lines you mentioned are outside of this MAP pricing regiment. Thus, they are artificially low. In many cases, unscrupulous Manu's and Dist's sell online FAR below dealer cost (killing the retail market place and people like me that make a living selling 12v to the public working day in and day out) just to make a quick buck or unload masses of inventory.
These Manu's and Dist's sell products at a FAR higher volume than a 12V retail store. So, they can 'afford' to make a smaller margin per unit sold. So, from that you see mass sales online. Bypassing the retail market place and hurting the economy as a whole.
For instance, if you go to a Chevy dealership and get a price of $30,000 for a new vehicle...and that is the 'going' retail rate. BUT, what if you could call up GM directly and get the same vehicle for $25,000???? In effect, you would have taken the dealership out of the picture and taken $ out of their pockets.
Yes, its a better price for you, but look at the larger picture.
Since the GM dealer ship didn't make $ on the sale of the vehicle, they are now in effect at a loss of profit. Now, expand that loss of profit exponentially to the point at which ALL GM customers can now buy direct from GM and the dealership is pretty much out of the picture. So, due to loss of profits, the dealership shuts down w/ them goes your local GM-certified garage. Now, what do you do when you have a warranty issue w/ your new vehicle? Ship it back to a GM Auto plant? You no longer have a local business to take care of problems on-site, what else can you do?
Local businesses suffer, local job force suffers.
