Spear Chucky wrote:
I thought the advent of online purchase was to find deals.

Shopping for new SCUBA stuff isn't paying off in savings.

For example, I purchased a AB Biller 48" speargun for $200.00 at Scuba Quest
in Orlando and every place online it was considerably more. I lost the tip
last time out and a replacement 'is' anywhere from $17.00 to $24.00 online.
Retail the tip is 19.95.

The same is true for cigars. I pay $82 w/tax for a box (25) of Hoyo de
Monterrey, double corona maduros. I've never seen them cheaper online

So what ever happened to the incentive to buy online?

It's retailing in general, forget genuine supply vs demand & certainly
lower overheads by a retailer aren't allowed to mean cheaper retail prices.

There are lots of little "tricks" to get around most competition laws
in most jurisdictions.

For instance in the marine industry most reasonably dear things
(radios, GPS, even down to safety gear) are invoiced to
retailers/dealers at "almost" the full retail price usually within
7%-10% of the recommended retail price.

The retailer never actually pays this "invoice" amount because then the
suppliers offer rebates, cost sharing, tech training, finance subsidies
etc etc , the list of ways that the retailer gets their real profit is
as endless as a spruikers ability to dream up a new name, usually just
referred to a "rebates" I call them what they are; secret kickbacks.

The "trick" is that all these ways of getting a "profit" back to the
retailer are "discretionary" i.e. the retailer has no contractual right
to them & it's just at the whim of the supplier.

This way the suppliers can keep control of the retail price, none of
them want real open competition because then prices in general wouldn't
be maximised against the consumer.

Also they can get the general consumer to cross subsidise pricing as
the supplier sees fit; e.g. a high volume OB motor seller in Florida
would get less aggregate of "unrelated" kickbacks than say a very low
volume OB seller in a snowy/frozen short season place who would have
their business "managed" by the franchise owner so they can survive
(just:-)) with things like extra "winter storage", or "off season"
rebates etc etc etc AND the retail price of OB engines remains the same
to the consumer no matter where they are. Believe it of not converted
back to US$ the price of US made OBs is the same here in Oz as it is in
the US some models even less:-)

If any retailer actually dropped retail pricing or worse still
advertised lower prices than the RRP less around 7% or say sold more
than the occasional engine outside their designated area, then first
they'd by chipped about it at the next dealer get together (fully paid
for by the supplier just another way of getting rebates to them) then if
that retailer didn't fall into line??? oops they would see a backing off
in their regular flow of rebates, till they did fall back into line.

Years ago it was only big ticket items, cars, boats, motors etc that
were sold this way, but as competition laws have increased banning
uncompetitive restrictions/practices, so to the creativity of the retail
chain to get around them, now almost everything is on a "rebate", that's
one of the reasons they hate walmart etc so much; sometimes just
sometimes:-) they actually compete.

The online people must be making a bundle because they have no
overheads & still get full retail from you & then full rebates down the
line from the supplier as reward for not competing on price.

The OMC dealers took the OMC administrator to court when it went belly
up (as it well deserved with Ficht) claiming they had a "verbal"
contract for rebates totaling 30% (imagine those dealer thieves were
pocketing 30% on a 15,000 OB engine they didn't even have to pay for!!!)
if they sold Ficht engines, in court the administrator argued "rebates"
are discretionary & OMC was under no obligation to pay any of them to
anyone, further the dealers owed the administrator the full "invoiced"
price on outstanding invoices:-) the administrator won, her Honour was
wise:-)

See that ****** who plonked you missed out of some good info:-)

K