Buying off Ebay

One thing I have always tried to do is support local business but sometimes you just have to ignore them. I have been looking for a new thermostat for our Leyland Royal Tiger bus for a while and the only place that had one wanted $500.00 (that's right) for one. Admittedly it is a flash bit of gear, basically a large disc with 3 small thermostats in a triangle layout. Anyway a bit of a hunt on the internet found a bloke in England that had them in stock and I had one delivered for $49.00 including air freight. It is genuine NOS in the original box. How do local suppliers justify charging exorbitant prices. It's no wonder more people are buying off the internet.

It's not only eBay that you have to be careful of. I bought some bonnet hinges of a member here in good faith when he said they were in excellent condition. When I got hem they were worse than the ones I had on the truck. I sent him a polite message and never even got a reply. Some people apparently have no concience. Last time I'll take someone's word.
Billy

Ray,

I ask the same question.

How can I buy from overseas for 1/3rd the price and have it delivered to my door in 5 days when I would wait a week or more from the Australian supplier.

Perhaps he's selling me the item, then buying from the eBay man, then forwarding it to me with a 300% mark-up.

A good example is the rear tyres on my car are US$140.00 plus freight or over AU$500.00 plus freight if purchased locally.

I just buy them from Summit racing and have them couriered to me. I save around $250.00 per tyre (or being American tire)

Same applies to new vehicle parts too. It is far cheaper for me to buy parts for my Jeep from a dealer in the USA than to get them from Jeep Australia.

Atleast for the new car parts it could be argued that they need to cover the costs of a nationwide distribution network to service a small population, not sure how the guys that find stuff at garage sales and clearing sales justify it

Hey guys, as a local supplier myself, I can tell you that there are a lot of rip off merchants out there. I regularly obtain products from overseas and the prices are quite reasonable, the biggest killer is the freight, which is negated if one buys a substantial quantity.

I will let you in on a little secret. In very general terms, most of my specially ordered in products are marked up 40% from my total cost, not including freight, which I simply pass on at cost price. Now 40% pays the bills, and leaves a tidy profit.

Now another supplier in town gets the same parts from the same wholesaler and charges anywhere from 50-60% to over 100% mark up. In a recent sale, I supplied some parts for a particular vehicle for $200 plus $18 freight, and I made a nice $60 profit. Upon delivery, the customer tells me he had received a quote from another company for the same brand of parts for over $400.

I also used to work for a large tractor dealership and can tell you that a rival dealership selling the same brand would add 10% to the RRP of their parts, so when a customer complained about the price, they gave you a 10% discount, and lost nothing. Another trick in which my dealership was particularly good at was, lets say you needed an 'o' ring, they would order in a packet of 10, supply you 1 and charge you for the packet, leaving them 9 'o' rings for free. I did a stocktake one year and we discovered that we had over $200 000 in free stock. Same with the freight, charge 10 customers $18, and get all 10 orders stuck in one air bag.

On the freight side of things, I can get most parts freighted from anywhere in Australia to the depot in town, either overnight or the next day. But it is the subcontractors who deliver from the depot to my door that take the most time. Generally it is on the third day but the longest I have had to wait so far is two weeks. So now I simply get the parcel delivered to the depot with instructions to call me when it arrives and I can pick it up whenever I need to.

In my line of work, great consideration has to go into the price, as the cost of parts can soon add up to over the value of the vehicle. My customers are lucky in that I'm not in it for the money I do it just to see the old girls live another day...

I do try and support the local traders.
I needed a CAV type fuel filter the other day, also needed some penetrating spray and carby cleaner.
Said to the counter jockey how much for the filter (Korean manufacture) about $10 the reply.
I had priced em on an Ebay seller site, Baldwin brand 6 for $36 plus freight and told Him so, no way He says.
Paid full price for CRC and filter but bought the budget brand carby cleaner for cheap, which evened it all out.
It does pay to keep an eye on it with small stuff as well as big stuff though as some of the online stuff is dearer as well.

All of the traders in my town are thieves that are trying to retire from 1 sale, apart from supercheap I refuse to buy from them and much prefer to buy online and wait, hopefully one day they might wake up but I seriously doubt it.

It always pays to shop around. When I was looking for a pressure cut out switch for the air compressor I fitted to my Land Cruiser I went to ARB & they quoted $240. So I went to TJM & they quoted $180. I finally got the exact same switch plus a one way valve from an Australian supplier on Ebay for $28 delivered.
The compressor was the same. Ebay $81 + $18 delivered & the same compressor (from a well known electrical shop rebadged with Projecta stickers) $425.

Raggsie, those CAV 296 filters cost about $2 each to buy and retail around the $6. The genuine Perkins ones are the cheapest and really good quality at $5 retail. Sometimes it does pay to tell the shops manager where to jam his parts and go elsewhere (unless he's the only shop in town).

Heres another story I just lately had to find some tyres for a bloke they were 700x20 and went my man who I thought was looking after me and came with $300 each and we wanted 9 tyres.
Did a bit a search and found someone on here saided try a bloke in Hamilton Vic rang him and was able to get them for $ 231 direct from the wholesalers and he said he was making $30 and so the deal was done and no skin of his nose. Dave