Quote:
Originally posted by Roger8519
How come you sell the clear corners for 140 when dalye sells them for 225? Is he ripping us off?
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Being ripped off is a matter of opinion I guess, but I respect both Lwin and Dayle so I'll provide a little 3rd party insight.
First off, as far as I know, all clear corners being offered are the same, quality Subaru OEM part. I have a pair of these myself which I got for even less from a source no longer available.
To be fair, we'll add the shipping charges to Lwin's price. $140 + $29 = $169. Of course Dayle's site says there is some extra shipping so assuming $15 or so IF he is only charging for U.S. shipping from AZ to your house, that brings it up to $240. Still quite a bit more than Lwin's price. About $70 more, maybe a bit more or less, I don't know what he charges shipping on those.
So why is Dayle charging around $70 more? Well he is running a buisness for one thing. He needs to make a profit. To say that is ripping you off is like saying Sears is ripping you off because Sears is selling you a Panasonic 27" TV for $300 when you could go to the factory in Japan and get it for $150. In retail sales there are lots of middlemen in the process and everyone gets a cut. In Dayle's buisiness he orders a TON of stuff from Japan (remember he has a full performance shop, not just SVX) and he probably has to pay a import service to bring these parts over and through customs, etc. So he may even be paying more for the part than Lwin can get it over here for. (if he is, maybe he should look into it, although being a business he may have more restrictions on how he can import things than Lwin does) So on top of whatever Dayle pays for the part and then to get it over here, he needs to charge a bit more to make a profit on it and make it even worth his time to sell it in the first place. Just like Sears, Circuit City, etc. in the television example. A business needs to make a profit to survive.
Lwin on the other hand seems to be doing this service to us for no extra cost whatsoever. He has even indicated that he may have to pay any small extras in shipping out of his own pocket rather than ask for compensation after someone has already paid him. He deserves a bit of profit for what he is doing, taking the time to take everyone's order, make the big order to his contact in Japan, etc, etc. Sounds like a pain to me and he is saying he will do this every month until everyone has what they want?
That certainly is a service to our community and I hope he at least gets some kind of compensation out of it, maybe the shipping will end up slightly lower than estimates for him. I would have no problem with that if I was making an order with him.
So to make a long story short (too late), Dayle is just trying to make a living the same way any other retail store in the world has to. He has a physical store in AZ and a online store that's been going for years. He makes it easy to buy some hard to find items for the SVX and is by far the largest source of aftermarket parts for us. With that said, if you are willing to take the time and track down leads yourself, you could probably find just about everything for a little less. Consider it money earned for the extra work you do researching to take out the middle man. In this case, Lwin has done a lot of that work and offered some hard to find parts for less. Take advantage of the offer while you can.
