I just ordered a TC4 from Ultimate Hobbies. Great deal. I was only after that item and the free shipping and kit price makes it worthwhile.
Hey I don't think any retailer does anything wrong with whatever price they want to sell at. This is North America and we live in a Free Enterprise System. Every industry is getting cut-throat now. Survival of the fitest. Everything is volume now. I work in the Electrical Distribution Industry in Industrial Automation as an Account Manager for Allen-Bradley. You should see what I go through everyday. We are never the lowest price. But we offer value add in many ways to the customer that the competition doesn't. We go to the manufacturer for special pricing if having a hard time selling into an account and stuff like that.
Basically you are on the internet to help supplement your business. This is the business success for the future we are all told. All you guys are doing extraordinary things to help attract customers. Do you know that all you online hobby stores don't have the same pricing for shipping with UPS, USPS etc? Think what Tower and a few other big names get.
Tower Hobbies always offers these coupons codes and if you remember there was a list of price discounts in September (7 levels) I tried to take advantage of a $50 off level when ordering my Traxxas Revo. It was $479.99 and on back-order and you had to spend $500 to get to the highest discount of $50. So I bought some small parts to go along with the the order. Those shipped out Priority Mail and the whole order shipping cost was $12.99. That means the backorder Revo was free shipping as they have to ship out twice and it's cost is would be like it was $429.99 if you think about it. Discount applied when back-order ships. I wanted it for a trophy race as my MGT is junk so I cancelled the back-order. I did buy it from a Hobby Store that was just becoming more involved with sponsoring our track. I bought the damn thing for $510 out the door which is still good but it is painful knowing that is $80 more. Oh well! Even after that purchase I went to this new store and made 2 more purchases. So I have spent almost a $1000 there. I do support local hobby shops but I as a customer mostly need stuff in stock and that is not the case with hobby stores. That is why some retailers whether on ebay or online get my business for the R/C stuff I need. I deal with Tower Hobbies, Stormer Hobbies, some eBay sellers and you get the stuff fast enough. You save a reasonable amount too. I tried Ultimate Hobbies in this case and I do plan on dealing with Speedtech also as I drive a TRF415 and like the offering on the hopups and layout of the webiste. I am just waiting for any additional items in his Tamiya order to come in. Steve does support the hobby very well from what I can see and posts lots on this website to help out. I see that value.
As for Tower, I think they are Great Planes distributor? Maybe they use extra profits on those lines they sell to support these offers and pricing. I do think there is some other factors like the shipping and other overhead costs and maybe the fact that some retailers buy in huge lots orders of items and get an additional discount per item.
I think the manufacturers are to blame in most cases. They set these M.S.R.P. (List Prices) and make the most money themselves. I think they make a good amount on anything they push out the door. I realize they have some higher costs like the wonderful engineers who do good work and the machinery to make items.
But we could easily take a pair of foam tires as a prime example. Also everyone knows that Plastic Injection Molding is like a license to print money. And R/C mostly has items that are plastic or other molded parts.
As for this arguement Hobby People does have it for $189.99 and every business has to decide if they need to respond to it with price matching or something else or just hope they will still be able to sell the item at the best they can do.