>>But when you consider the tiny profit margins that some of these stores are >working on
>
>I had to snip this comment out. Tiny profit margin? *ROFL*
>
>Retail sales markup can be anywhere from 100% to 500% on items. The higher the cost of an item, the smaller the markup, but you are talking about very large ticket items.
>
>The way electronic equipment is designed and built these days, the cost to produce it is relatively low IMO. I believe profit margins are high enough and the manufacturers/vendors/resellers don't deserve my sympathy one bit.

Maybe things are different in the United States, but I know what pricing is like here in Canada. I am talking about computer equipment. In Canada, a store will make more on the sale of the printer cable than the sale of the printer. Computer stores go belly-up here regularly. An old friend of mine was a manager of a Future Shop computer department. He told me that a lot of the hardware was sold at cost to attract customers. Now, it might not *really* have been at cost, but as far as he knew it was. I resell computer hardware. I know that big distributors like Ingram Micro and Merisel sometimes sell hardware at on a small percentage less than stores like Future Shop. I know there are items with larger markups, but normally systems and inkjet printers have very. very low markups.

Joe