Marine electronics prices

[wheels 543]

Yeah I agree with KM. Competition on most things and most certainly electronics is huge in this country. Just as you individuals can now go buy directly from oversea's, so too can any supplier if they so wish. If a seller makes a product too expensive, then eventually another seller will say, hey there's a buck to be made here and will bring the product in themselves. The old days of big margins and the Big head cheese owning 5 launches all over 50ft and skighting on about having the biggest outboard powered launch in the world is pretty much all over now. Only the Bosses of investment companies that own the manufacturing companies can afford to say that now.

When I did my Business Management course many many moons ago now, it was a general rule of thumb that everyone in Retail made a 50% mark up. That varies of course, depending on what you are selling, but i am talking the average kind of stuff. You had to to pay Wages, Power, Phone, Rent, Lease, Rates, Insurance, Maintenance and a little bit goes int and then hopefully have a little profit at the end of the Finacial year, of which you then had to pay Tax from. If you discounted an item by just 10%, the actual profit you lose at the end means you have to sell another 500 of those units to make back that same profit. Well, many margins have been cut by far more than 10% these days. And we have added into the Business more expenses, like Internet, Promotion/Advertising/Printing, Cell ph's, Astronomical freight cost, especially getting across that Ditch, Provisional Taxes, ACC, OSH, Lawyers, Accountants and other land sharks. CG, because now you have to accept goods back no arguments and maybe even replacement at your cost and it could be months or even years after. Costs have gone through the roof and the profits have plumeted.

[Guest]

Wheels, if there is such small profits to be gained then how do you explain the situation I was in last year?

I was looking at purchasing a particular New Zealand brand car stereo.

I could have imported it from the states, include the exchange rate, shipping and GST and it came to just over half the cheapest NZ price I could find. I didn't end up buying it, but thought it was absolutely ridiculous.

 

I bought my laptop in Hawaii, paid the GST at the airport, all up under $2000.

Even now, 18 months later, you would expect to pay at least $3000 for a laptop with the same specs. It simply isn't worth paying NZ prices for electronics.

[tuffyluffy 76]

Wheels, the retail side of the rag trade (ie clothing) work on 500%+ margins.

[wheels 543]

Yeah I was thinking of clothing as one item when I made the comment about most of the general things that have the 50% mark ups. Clothing is an item that gets a huge mark up because of two things. The fact that at the end of the season, enormous amounts get sold off cheap or sent to rags. And stupid snobery people that shop in only "certain" shops because that is where you shop to be noticed in the right circles etc. On the very rare occasions I have shopped with Dawn, because she doesn't enjoy shopping (yeah she's a keeper all right) we have seen the exact same dreses in places like Postie plus and the ellite shops for twice and three times the money.

 

Blackensign, overseas places like the US don't have the over heads we have and they have scale of economy, so they buy at huge discounts for quantity, and then can sell huge volumes with very small mark ups. When it comes to warrenty, the retailer doesn't deal with that. They don't want to know. You return the item at your cost back to the Manufacturer and deal with them. The retailer is nothing more than a box pusher. Most retailers don't even pay a wage. If they do, it is a very small retainer. The guy on the floor makes his money from commision. We see that in a small way in NZ now, but there is a minimum wage, so that still has to be paid. There is no minimum wage overseas.

Oh and it is fairly cheap to bring in one item. but try bringing in five or ten. Suddenly a very different situation. Duties, taxes and Insurance, oh and freight is astronomical.

[Guest]

Im not sure illlegal is the correct word Jono. That implies it is an offence and you can be charged for it. Non-compliant would probably be a better term.

[Bimini Babe 0]

Im not sure illlegal is the correct word Jono. That implies it is an offence and you can be charged for it. Non-compliant would probably be a better term.

Still interested to know what the difference is?

 

True enough, just got an email back from 406registry to say they can't be registered here. No biggie, I'll just register them at my UK address, along with my boat that I don't have to get Cat 1 for...

 

Am I any less safe on the water for it? I'd be genuinely interested to know...

[Guest]

Wheels, the retail side of the rag trade (ie clothing) work on 500%+ margins.

Not any more.

[tuffyluffy 76]

Wheels, the retail side of the rag trade (ie clothing) work on 500%+ margins.

Not any more.

 

Your quite right, the small chain that i have a minor shareholding in buys shirts at $6-

$13 a unit (container lot) and retails them, on special at $100. You do the maths.

[Guest]

And the dresses we import ourselves for my wife's shop used to be sold at 300%, had we kept that up we would now be out of business.

 

Have a walk around Newmarket and check all the for lease signs, then ask whether some of those defunct shops did the right thing sticking to their margins.

[wheels 543]

Jono will be better qualified to answer this, but as I understand it, it is because 406's are "coded" for the Area's they were intended to be registered in. This is a "code" that is much like say a Telephone. You have a counry code and an area code. Your own number is meaningless to the rest of the world if it does not have a Country code and area code.The EPIRB is similar.

The 406MHx EPIRB uses the COSPAS-SARSAT medium orbit satellites. When a satellite receives an alert, it calculates out how close the casualty is to the satellite.

If a ground station is in sight it transmits this information together with the EPIRB ID to the station.

More importantly, if there is no ground station in sight it will store the information and forward it when it can see a ground station. This is known as global mode, as distinct form the local mode used for 121.5MHz EPIRBs. In other words, the system works anywhere on the globe, sometimes locally and sometimes globally using store and forward.

When a ground station receives this information the beacon ID shows which country responsible for maintaining a list of beacons and their registered owner. This is why it is vital to have an EPIRB properly programmed and registered. So to say this in finer detail, say you are in the middle of the Pacific. The Bird over head pciks up your distress. But it can not see a ground station in your registered area yet. So it stores the alert till it flies around the world further and comes into contact with a ground station in your registered area. There is no point in picking up the alert in the pacific and then having the Bird transmit that alert to some station in South America when you are registered in the UK. It could be done but it takes extra time and of course cost.

The EPIRB registry is seperate to it's area code and rego has all the contact details, vessel type and other information of use to the SAR authorities.

If more positional information is received from another satellite the ground station can use the two position reports to further improve the accuracy. Once again, there is no use ion having one bird send info to one ground station and another bird to another staion on the other side of the world.

[Steve Pope 243]

Wheels, I have recently bought a wheel bearing for our old Corolla, RRP over $400.00 my eventual price $78.00. and of course they still aren't exactly giving it away.

New alternator RRP over $800.00 their buy in price $320.00.

A mate had the side mirror knocked off his WolWo, NZ dealer replacement over $1200.00 eventually sourced out of the States, landed here around $600.00, still bloody dear but nothing like the margin available to the local dealer, who by the way didn't have it in stock so it wasn't as though it was an inventory item.

Some folk will be paying the full RRP!!

[Chill Pill 1]

I have a 40yo broken down British sports car. Sad but true.

So I take the radiator into local guru for repair.

Told core is fecked $790 to replace.

Imported one from the UK landed brand new $350.

[SloopJohnB 322]

I have a 40yo broken down British sports car. Sad but true.

So I take the radiator into local guru for repair.

Told core is fecked $790 to replace.

Imported one from the UK landed brand new $350.

 

No wonder we don't have any industry here its all you guys importing new stuff and not getting the repairs done here.

[wheels 543]

Hang about you guys are off into tangents. Were we not talking electronics here??

There are other reasons why some other products are stupid expensive and certainly in the Genuine car parts area. Some are rediculous and yet the there are some genuine parts now that are cheaper than after market.

Here is an interesting story. A lurker here used to be the Boss of a major Vehicle Franchise in the North Island in a mjor centre. They never made money on selling the new cars. It was a lose. Where the Busioness actually makes there money was in serviing and Parts. Hows that for a weird way of doing business.

[Guest]

Don't car sales get their money from the finance as well?

[tuffyluffy 76]

And the dresses we import ourselves for my wife's shop used to be sold at 300%, had we kept that up we would now be out of business.

 

Have a walk around Newmarket and check all the for lease signs, then ask whether some of those defunct shops did the right thing sticking to their margins.

 

 

Youre paying to much for your dresses!

 

We have an outlet in Newmarket and have been watching them fall, and did due diligence on one small chain just before they hit the wall about 12 months ago. Their problem was that they were selling small volumnes from a multitude of suppliers, hence didnt have the buying power to drive the supply cost down. This will always to a problem for a small operator. Your larger chains (Farmers, Country Road etc) survive buy whipping their suppliers so they can maintain their 500%+ margins.

 

We couldnt survive on a 300% margin, hence we bashup our supplier on a regular basis.

[tuffyluffy 76]

Hang about you guys are off into tangents. Were we not talking electronics here??

There are other reasons why some other products are stupid expensive and certainly in the Genuine car parts area. Some are rediculous and yet the there are some genuine parts now that are cheaper than after market.

Here is an interesting story. A lurker here used to be the Boss of a major Vehicle Franchise in the North Island in a mjor centre. They never made money on selling the new cars. It was a lose. Where the Busioness actually makes there money was in serviing and Parts. Hows that for a weird way of doing business.

 

Servicing is how most of the dealers have survived the last few years

[Guest]

But if you were a young girl going to your first school ball would you want to buy a dress that you know they sold another 25 of in a town with only two schools?

 

One of the distinguishing features of her shop is "only one of each item".

A large chain can certainly bash up the suppliers, but they have other restrictions on what they can and can't do, what do your salepeople say to the customer who complains that they don't want the same item as all the other girls ? these are females remember.

How come Farmers are having sales on this year's summer stack when it still feels like the middle of bloody winter? Methinks they aren't doing that well.

One advantage the small independant has over a big chain is the ability to make decisions and react to market changes waaay quicker (how far in advance do you have to order stock? - If Angela makes a decision to purchase, the item is normally in store in 7 to 10 days). That has helped keep her profitable during the last two years.

[tuffyluffy 76]

Your wife obviously has a nice little niche shop running, and if she can survive on lesser margin, good for her.

 

Everyone is feeling the effects at the mo, and the likes of Famers arent immune, but they, like us, survive by controlling cost, maintaining margin, and/or pushing turn-over.

 

BTW - we dont do womens wear for a reason

[Guest]

Yep, I was thinking about it between posts, we are in different markets. She has survived what has been a really tough time, by knowing her clients (many very loyal) and her business and adapting when necessary. She had to try and cut costs everywhere else she could, but we are hoping the payoff has started - the last 12 months sales well up on the last , even if somewhat erratic, and at least four of the immediate opposition no longer in business.