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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I believe that would be called price
matrixing. Happens in most business that sell many
different parts. The smaller lower cost parts can get marked up as
much 500% The more expensive it gets the lower the markup up till it
reaches a minimum markup(say like 30%). </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I just want a bearing that last at LEAST one
season.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Wayne G.</FONT></DIV>
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style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=aabdu@sbcglobal.net href="mailto:aabdu@sbcglobal.net">Anthony
Abdullah</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=discussion@nsrca.org
href="mailto:discussion@nsrca.org">discussion@nsrca.org</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Tuesday, October 14, 2003 3:55
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Bearing prices, for shame</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>I work at a major industrial distributor and for some unknown reason had
not utilized them as a source of replacement bearings yet. A flyer at my local
field asked me to get replacement bearings for his OS91 VRDF and had me look
up the part number. I found out that for at least the OS ducted fan engine
they are standard NTN bearings. Tower charges 14.49 for the smaller front
bearing and 16.99 for the larger rear one. I looked them up in our
system and our cost on the front is $3.79 and the rear is $4.84! Now
color me silly, but I think a 251% mark up is a little excessive. If only I
could sell anything for that I would be flying a pattern plane made of
gold.That doesn't even include shipping because both would have to be shipped
so that's a push. Now I can see the price if the bearings are specially made
for our application and require seperate tooling or equipment, but we
bought and sold about 3.7 million of those last year for industrial
applications alone, and probably have about 250,000 on the shelves of our 650
SCs at any given time. It is obvious that OS buys a standard bearing,
renumbers it and sells it to us at a huge profit for their troubles. Another
example of the RC market being taken advantage of.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Moral of the story: if you can find another source of replacement
bearings do it. My company has service centers in 48 states and any of the
friendly associates could probably save you money on them. I would even be
willing to acquire them and ship em and I would only charge you 150% markup.
<vbg> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Disclaimer: I know that there are people out there who would say "what
about OSs cost overhead, and razor thin margins, and blah.... blah....
blah..." but I really am not concerned about that. I know it costs them X
dollars to do business, but my only concern is spreading the word to my
fellow RC enthusiasts so that we can stretch our already thin hobby dollar as
far as possible. <BR><BR></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>