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What Price To Retailers And Penshops Pay For An M800?


Sach

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What price do pen shops and retailers pay for an M800 before selling on to the end user? Just curious..

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I would say roughly 50% of the country specific suggested selling price.

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interesting, I also wonder what the mark up on pens are before I buy them.

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"I would say roughly 50% of the country specific suggested selling price."

 

 

Hear..Hear!....Wonder no more....

 

Fred

 

This is..{pause}..Howard Cosell..telling it like it is....

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We are sincerely sorry..Ladies and Gents..for the

Dreaded Double Post....{DDP}

 

 

 

Fred

 

Who remembers Andy Devine & Froggy....

{freakin' happy face time}....

Edited by Freddy
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curious and curiouser…50% distribution and retailing margins?

When you consider the brick and mortar stores typically discount their products, 20%, 25% and sometimes even up to 50%, but still have to pay their employees and overhead, you will see why so many have had to shut down due to competition from the internet. If you like having the ability to see and test drive a pen before purchasing it, support your local pen stores whenever possible, I always do...

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There is something to be said for supporting your local specialty retailer whenever possible - whether they be pens, watches, running gear or whatever. No pen shops anywhere close to me, so I can't do so there. We do have an art supply store that I have bought ink from in the past as well as other things. I make sure I do with my running gear - assuming they carry what I am looking for.

Brad

"Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind" - Rudyard Kipling
"None of us can have as many virtues as the fountain-pen, or half its cussedness; but we can try." - Mark Twain

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I can only speak for Turkey. Due to some lucky and unexpected connections, I learned that the retailers pay around 50% of the price they are asking for the Pelikans. That is pretty much the case for all the higher end pens but the margins are lower for the lower end pens. The distributors pay surprisingly small amounts but I don't have exact figures for them.

 

As for supporting local pen stores, I'm all for that idea, in theory. For Turkey, I think they can all go to hell. They won't even let you try the pens before buying them. The only place that let me try the pen was Montblanc and well, they are a pen company. Today, one clerk actually told me that if I give so much money for a pen, I could bet that it would write good and that there was no need to test it beforehand. They should just place tester pens out there, like MB does. They also know pretty much nothing about the pens they're selling and they almost shoo you out of the store after you look at an expensive pen for a couple of minutes and decide that you sadly can't afford it. Like it costs them something if I look at a pen and take my time to decide. When they start treating customers right, I'll support them over here!

 

OK, end of rant. Had a pretty stressful pen shopping experience today while buying my new Lamy 2k and had to vent someplace :D

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I would say roughly 50% of the country specific suggested selling price.

Interesting. Any idea of how these country specific prices vary across the globe? Any tables of prices available?

 

I would have thought than in today's digital era, prices differences mean little as any differences would be arbitraged out..

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This would make an interesting side note to an economics study of retail practices in the U.S. or another country (I'm sure practices vary from one to another). It has been many years since I studied economics in high school (graduated 1968) or college (BS, 1972), but here are some thoughts.

 

A friend (like me, politically more liberal than most of us in our mutual profession) recently defended Exxon-Mobil's obscene profits as "no more than J.C. Penney's profit margins." I was compelled to point out to him that basic economics study shows that certain businesses expect and strive for certain returns, while other businesses expect and strive for other standards. Volume of goods moved has a lot to do with it. Clothing stores have one standard, but oil companies have another, obviously very different from each other. Furniture retailers typically mark up 100% from cost; when they have "half off" sales, they are selling at cost after making profits on what they sold out of a purchase at profit. Piano dealers mark up a little more; it takes a lot of space to store unsold pianos, and that is a legitimate cost of doing business. You can get a really good price on a new piano if you catch the dealer ready to clear space for new inventory. This progresses through numerous business types; the most incredible I know anything of is jewelers, who might mark up as much as 3,500%. Before anyone goes barking at me, defending their uncles or fathers, whatever, who are/were perfectly honest, hardworking jewelers, note that I said "as much as," and I didn't say they sell a lot of stuff at those levels.

 

So, when it comes to fountain pen retailers (or stationery or others of interest to us), it's not a simple judgment call. Obviously, as a previous poster noted, there is a difference between a brick and mortar retailer's cost of doing business and an etailer's cost. Rather than quibble about gouging, we just need to ask ourselves whether a purchase we want to make is worth it to ourselves.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Really, I have a brick and mortar near me and they always give me 20 and 30% off. 20% profit margin on the constantly decreasing sales is not too terrible. Besides if you think the pen is too expensive for YOU to buy why does what others pay matter?

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i bought my green sirated M800 at overstock.com for 315 Its brand new. so keep an eye out on overstock.com ( USA site)

'The Yo-Yo maneuver is very difficult to explain. It was first perfected by the well-known Chinese fighter pilot Yo-Yo Noritake. He also found it difficult to explain, being quite devoid of English.

So we left it at that. He showed us the maneuver after a sort. B*****d stole my kill.'

-Squadron Leader K. G. Holland, RAF. WWII China.

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Can I say a word in favour of those internet sellers who also turn up at pen shows and are as friendly and helpful as the best of the bricks and mortar stores.

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  • 1 month later...

i bought my green sirated M800 at overstock.com for 315 Its brand new. so keep an eye out on overstock.com ( USA site)

Thanks for this tip. I'm currently in the market for an m800. I'll be on the lookout :)

WTB: Edison Menlo

WTB: Any of Ernest Shin's work

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I can only speak for Turkey. Due to some lucky and unexpected connections, I learned that the retailers pay around 50% of the price they are asking for the Pelikans. That is pretty much the case for all the higher end pens but the margins are lower for the lower end pens. The distributors pay surprisingly small amounts but I don't have exact figures for them.

 

As for supporting local pen stores, I'm all for that idea, in theory. For Turkey, I think they can all go to hell. They won't even let you try the pens before buying them. The only place that let me try the pen was Montblanc and well, they are a pen company. Today, one clerk actually told me that if I give so much money for a pen, I could bet that it would write good and that there was no need to test it beforehand. They should just place tester pens out there, like MB does. They also know pretty much nothing about the pens they're selling and they almost shoo you out of the store after you look at an expensive pen for a couple of minutes and decide that you sadly can't afford it. Like it costs them something if I look at a pen and take my time to decide. When they start treating customers right, I'll support them over here!

 

OK, end of rant. Had a pretty stressful pen shopping experience today while buying my new Lamy 2k and had to vent someplace :D

 

Well, this kind of sales men is very annoying.

 

It happened to me once, here in United States. The retailer is an authorized Pelikan and Montblanc retailer. They also sell some Japanese fountain pens.

 

As soon as I walked into the store, there was an old solemn sale man kept asking me what I wanted. It seemed he didn't believe such a young person could afford any pens in that shop. People usually say I look 12 years younger than my actual age. I told him I was just looking around. He just couldn't stop seizing me up and leaving me alone.

 

I was supposed to buy a brand new Pelikan M1000 that day. It ended up with a Pilot Prera. In fact, I didn't even want to buy the Pilot, but I felt uncomfortable with buying nothing because of his facial expression.

 

I think I won't go visit any local pen shops for a couple of years.

 

- L

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