I know it's advisable and necessary to use OEM parts in certain situations, and I'm not knocking the use of, but those B & S prices are criminal (like most OEM products LOL)!
A comment like this can only come from some one with little knowledge or understanding of the cost involved in warehousing & distribution of a massive number of spare parts.
B & S parts are disproportionlly cheap , Kohler parts are at around the correct price & Kawasaki parts are a touch on the deer side but in their case it could be just a lack of volume thing.
One big reason why the market is flooded with highly subsidised very cheap Honda knock off engines is because none of those companies have any parts back up sucking up their profits from selling the complete engine.
as an illustration Lucas added the warehousing costs to every part they had in the warehouse on a monthly basis.
So when they closed down, they offered parts at the wholesale price to various car & bike clubs then the general public.
A silicon plate 6 V rectifier that was 40 p back in 1960 was valued at $ 475 in 1984.
The last warehouse I ran, it cost $ 4.50 per item to be picked , if it was a hand pick and double that ( or more ) if it was on a pallet that had to be pulled out with a fork lift.
Then the invoicing cost was $ 2 ( for a single item ) and the delivery drivers were paid from $ 0.50 to $ 2.50 for a metropolitan delivery and this could go up to $ 25 for interstate deliveries.
At the other end the retailer has costs involved with placing the order and passing it across the counter to you.
The local mower shop divides the number of sales per day into the actual on cost of the counter staff & worked out it cost them $ 3.65 per sale.
This is why Amazon sales are so cheap because they have forced down the picking cost to a few cents by virtually enslaving the pickers , remember they have gone on strike several times and why Amazon is spending millions on developing robotic picking so they can sack all of the order pickers.
Most of their warehouses already use robotic replenishment of the pick face which is easy as everything is a standard pallet.
And of course the ordering is done by YOU so the cost of generating the order & picking slip is a few pennies .
And then there is the price of actually making the parts
People not involved in manufacture seem to think every part is made by santa's elves from pixie dust so costs nothing to make and Rudulf delivers all the finished parts to the warehouses for free as a backload after delivering materials to Santa's workshop for christmas present manufacture.
