Eeyore ) writes:


I paid about $8 each for the transistors here in Canada, but have since
located a US supplier that sells them for $2 ea. They have a lot of got
prices on semis so may order a bunch of stuff from them. Of course, they
might not be of great quality....

Why not ? Short of being counterfeits ?

Because he's trying to understand why there's such a big difference in price.
An immediate reason would be the exchange rate between the two countries.
That's less of a factor now than a few years ago because the two dollars
are much closer together, but my take is that we don't see prices here
in Canada fluctuate to match the exchange rate.

There's also a smaller market, so they'd want increased profit to
compensate for having a big stock just lying around.

And since it's a smaller market, they may not buy in as large quantities
as some company in the US, which means they don't get as good quantity
discount from further up the chain.

Finally, a lot of places that might have cheaper prices aren't so friendly
to the hobbyist, or at least to those who only need a few parts. So the
higher price may reflect a company that is willing to go to the fuss
of selling in small quantities, and they want a higher profit to compensate.
Someone buying enough of them, or a large order in total of different parts,
might get a better price because they could deal with a place that isn't
interested in small orders.

It can be a drag to have to buy parts that you don't need at the moment in
order to get good prices. On the other hand, it's often better pricewise
to buy those thousand resistors (or whatever) than pay the single price for
a few resistors. You end up with more stock in the latter case.


Michael