Polisher,
I still say fair play to you for responding to this thread mate. Your points regarding overheads are of course totally relevant and I suspect that some poeple aren't fully au fait with the actual cost of running a business - assuming you have a commercial premises you're looking at rates, rent, insurance, utilities, salaries etc etc. Sounds horribly patronising I realise but small businesses do, IMHO, have a real struggle to stay solvent.
As for the question of duty/VAT most of the UK guys here are aware of the "current" situation as regards Autopia and duty - I'll say no more than that!!!!
That all said polisher, why do you charge nearly £40 for Carlack when I can (and do) buy it for less than 1/2 that elsewhere in the UK. Sorry to be a tad direct but several others here have bought it from the same source AND as a response to the pricing issue, I'd be gobsmacked if you're paying the same dollar price as we do for product from Autopia - knowing a little about what certain products cost at cost/trade, are you really paying full wack for Sonus products???? :soscared:
And are you able to answer whether we will still be able to buy from Autopia USA now that they have a UK reseller - I think that as things stand it's cheaper to buy direct from the US rather than some UK suppliers for whatever reason (C&S & Alex spring immediately to mind and maybe Ron).
It pees me off that we pay a lot more for products but I guess we have to kinda live with it - that's VAT and import duty for you!!
And I do agree with the point which I *think* C&S made, in that you rarely, if ever, buy "1 or 2 bits" from Autopia US - I certainly haven't! When you want a single, say, LC pad, you can buy one from C&S, if it's UPP, you can buy a single bottle from SP - not an additional bunch of stuff which would cost a lot more.
Bottom line really is that we're now getting access to a lot more products over here and that's got to be good (or if you're one of our other 1/2's, VERY bad...!) - if demand continues to increase, maybe prices will either stabilize or maybe come down slightly.
Lastly, polisher, a disocunt scheme sounds like a good idea to me - what are you thinking of? Following the Autopia USA levels (as I personally am in the Buyer's Club and have a few other disocunt codes