Oil production in the US has been far higher in the current administration than in the previous one. We have been the world leader in 2023 and 2024. The difference is that demand is also at an all time high as the world economies recovered from the pandemic and Russia invaded Ukraine which put Russian oil on the sanctions list. Iran is also being sanctioned and Venezuela is a complete mess due to corruption and the communist idiocy that has devastated their oil production. It’s the old story, where supply meets demand you get price. Corporations learned during the shortages of the pandemic that consumers are willing to pay a whole lot more for stuff than the manufacturers realized. Prices are coming down, including gas, but so long as there are tons of people with more money than brains or patience, businesses will get away with profiteering.
Price guaging
- Thread starter Mattmotors
- Start date
Laziness and ignorance.
But they could at least look for the best price! I guess that consider that gouge equal to the local price because their time it so effing valuable, eh? I mean, driving a long distance vs online is fine but not if it involves grabbing the handles to assume the position.
BOHICA!
And these are the same people who complain about the high prices of other items.
marinusdees
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I am not a professional repair man. I recently had reason to need an ignition coil for a Stihl hedge trimmer. I thought Stihl parts would be "fair-traded" so every dealer charged the same retail price. Just for shits and grins I shopped several dealers. Wow, was I wrong! Prices ranged from $30 to $50. And, I didn't shop all the dealers in range. Figured $30 was as good as it would get, maybe I was wrong??
Alan46
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Thank for the heads up I bro!
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The local dealers set their own pricing scale. It is the same here with Stihl dealers. This is why went thru several dealers before the one I now use. One was nearly twice the others on pricing. Even have to pay the same as the end users when comes to Stihl parts.
For the most part I use my distributor price files. Even then you can find one distributor charging more for some OEM parts than others. One example is the seats I brought back in June. One distributor wanted $180 ea cost with a retail of @$230 for the same seat as the other that was under $100 cost with a retail of $150. This is why I have two main distributors.
For a while I was having to bump the retail price from my distributors as they started charging 3% surcharge for paying by credit card. But I now have that resolved and my retail prices are now back to normal. Even 3% surcharge made some of parts cost more than the suggested retail prices. MTD is one of the worst to have razor thin price margins for us if we stick with the price files.
Anyone in business will tell you there is a lot cost that we have to cover at times. This why many of us have in house part inventories which help to both keep our costs down and the retail prices down. This allows us to buy in larger quantities to reduce our inbound freight costs.
There are a lot of people in this country with so much money that they don’t bother asking “how much?”. These folks aren’t interested in fixing their own lawn equipment, so they are not typically on this site. But have to admit that it is possible that because they sell so few Cub Cadet branded plugs, that the cost to stock and inventory such low numbers translates into a per plug cost/price of $20.
A lot of time I have found that OEM parts are exactly the same as aftermarket parts. This leads me to believe the OEM's are getting their parts the same aftermarket manufacturers as I am!