Guys,
you do pay tax to get items from Free zone - that is 5-7% from the invoice value + documentation fees.
The shipping is not so cheap to here. Sea freight is cheaper, but it takes lot of time, and you have to get a huge shipment to benefit from this.
So if you do, you have to deliver it ans store it somewhere, so warehouse rent + delivery to warehouse + further delivery to the retail place... Etc. Thats where %'s come from
I think that item available Ex-Stock already coasts more than item you have to wait for - 1-2 weeks delivery.
So the thoughts about 30% etc. are not so real. its a very simple economics. Any business is made to earn money, and we can pay for products + service! Yes, that thing, service, we have to pay for it. Well we can have conversation with US... a long e-mail story (as we wake up while they sleep).. i still like face to face conversation more than any e-mail ping-pong.
Now, simple one, lift kit worth USD 1000, + 30% = so that extra 300 USD, out of it, aprox 70-100 USD spent to get it delivered into retal shop, so we got around 200 USD more, now, rents, salaries, telephones, electricity etc. How can a business grow with other policy?
A company can offer wide range of products, with profit rate of 10-15%, and another narrow range, for what they got better terms, being distributors. So we talk of bigger orders, wholesale (as Malte told), Sea freight, so the initial landed cost of product is less. Now the trader can play with the price. Get it almost same as overseas, do offers, considering market, currency rate, landed coast of next shipment etc.
So if you just get a little more deep into this, we cant blame vendors here in UAE. Thats the way its done here.
So what can a vendor do? ... SERVICE, TRANSPARENCY, RESPECT OF CLIENT, INFORMATION, KNOWLEDGE.
And if we have this, why not let the vendor earn few % of their profit?
Now, discounts. A vendor can offer such to some group - lets say AD4x4. They offer us special price, in a trade to extra overturn. So vendor sells more products with lower profit rate, but actually ears the same, as he sells same products cheaper but faster. The most important is time... the longer yo got your stock - stocked, the longer your money is stuck in this stock.
And i do prefer paying a little more, to company that treats me for what i pay them. And when such company offers specials to a limited public, and you are one of them, you feel being that special ..
Its like Emirates Airlines, who can upgrade your ticket to business class if they got no more economy and you are one of their perm client.
Yeah, and i hate this thing -
-how much is balancing 4 wheels 17"?
-200, but for you sir special price 180 (yeah i see the guy for the first time in me life)
-mate, 2 weeks back it was 150
-no sir, normal price 250, but for you 200 and special discount i make - 180!
Do you think i did the job with them?