Air compressors rip offs

Goran merry christmass - do you believe in faries - they will never own up to ripping us off. bet its because of the high price of labour in australia.
i have an arb - its just a pump but for the price you might expect it could also make coffee.
they collude on prices and we suckers pay the bills. once upon a time buyers could gang up and force these snake oil sales men into place but now we have no hope at all and you will see that as soon as a product becomes available overseas at a fraction of the cost we will then get that at an even higher price because we are silly enough to pay. that what "going off shore is " manufacturing at slave rates and selling to us as if manufactured by people on a decient wage .
regards peter

G'day Goran,

Yeah, these things sure are a rip-off, but it is not confined to the 4WD industry. the Nikes, Reeboks or Adidas shoes and "name brand" sporting gear we all wear are usually marked up in the 3 figure % mark.

I know that for fact as I once was the accounts manager for a mate of mine who owned 4 sports stores in a national franchise scheme.

It is not so much the individual store owners, it is the unbelievably high monthly franchise fees they have to pay for using someone elses name. And thats on top of buying the franchise in the first place.

Other factors which are taken into account when the mark up goes on are the high costs of staff, superannuation, store rental [high], workers comp [very high], repayment of shop fit [ an average "good" shopfit usually costs well over $100K], personal liability insurance [very high], stock insurance, advertising, repayment of bank loans, etc., etc., etc..

In the end, the actual retailer does make a reasonabley good profit, but he certainly does NOT pocket the sort of profits the markup would indicate. Other people have their grubby little hands out along the way.

And in the end it is we, the mug consumers that have to pay for all the ongoing costs incurred along the way - from manufacture to the checkout.

Merry Christmas mate

DennisN

Do you really expect them to stand up and say yes we rip you off?


Its a small market when you look at the amount sold... if you sell one of something you have to charge more to cover your costs...

If they are from OS countries which have better $$ value than ours, which is all but Olooola Olooola land, then we have to pay more...

The local tool discount store- Fisher Discounts in Fyshwick- has 2.5 hp compressors with 25 L cylinder for $140. Unfortunately you would need a bloody long extension lead as they are 240 volts. But the point is you get a lot of compressor for not much money when compared to the 12 volt 'toy' compressors that cost 3 or 4 hundred dollars. I agree with Goran.

Unfortunately this appears to be a matter of Supply and Demand. If people pay these prices then there is no reason to make them cheaper. No simple solution I can see.

as with anything that says 4x4 you pick a number and multiply by whatever you think you can get away with and thats your price not so much the shops as the bigger chain stores

Goran...I absolutely agree with you.

Look at Marlow's Grunter and SuperCheap's little 4x4 air compressor. Both around $70. Look at the Hurricane, closer to $300 and it's the same unit. Even BigW sells a variation of the same compressor for $69.

Another example is Repco's Cyclone at $99 and the Bushranger ProAir at $250 odd dollars. Again, exactly the same units but big difference.

So with that in mind, are the cheaper units from Super Cheap and Repco, going to stand up to the vigours of outback use and conditions?

That is the real Question.