"tim....." wrote in message
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"Nightjar cpb.me.uk" "insert my surname here wrote in message
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On 24/09/2015 19:40, Bill Wright wrote:
110Ah deep discharge battery sold through some disability industry
outlets: £149.95. Exact same battery sold for golf buggy: £60

With or without VAT?

Flightsafe device: £30. This is a three pin XLR plug with pins 1 and 2
shorted, in red plastic. This inhibits the scooter operation. Cost of
manufacture will be about £1.

115mm rubber tyred jockey wheel, 20mm bo Disability shops: £18.
Various other places: about £10.

Various scooter keys:
Shoprider on/off switch £10. This is standard plastic body toggle
switch: £1 from CPC etc.
Some old types of scooter uses a standard 1/4" jack plug, shorted out
internally, as a key. These are sold for £5 to £12 in disability shops.
Some other keys are on standard blanks and my local cobbler with turn
them out at £5 each, but if you buy from a disability shop they are
likely to be £12 to £15.

It is simply a matter of shopping around. Last week I bought a three
wheel walker, with bag, basket and tray, for £29.99 from Amazon. Around
£90.00 from a disability shop. A few weeks earlier I bought a lightweight
transfer wheelchair for £50 from Amazon, as opposed to £12.50 a week to
hire locally; worthwhile as I knew it would take my partner more than
four weeks to fully recover from her TIA.

I suspect the difference is in the level of turnover and the overheads
involved in having a shop on the high street.

and having to deal with returns and warranties

3 out of 4 of the items that I have purchased on Amazon type sites have
broken in less than the warranty period,

None of mine have with that sort of item.

but, of course, silly me forgot to
keep the seller's details - but the aggro of sending it back by post
probably means that I wouldn't bother anyway

I have had the Culinare Automatic Jar Opener I got off ebay
fail twice now, both times outside the stated warranty. While
I do know who the seller was because I keep the emails, I didn’t
even bother to contact the seller, just emailed Culinare with a
photo of the first failure, had them send out a new one. They
didn’t want the old one back the photo was all they needed.

With the second failure, one of the long arms broke off completely
at the end inside the body. Just said that in the email and had them
send out the replacement. Again, they didn’t want the dead one.

I did at one time buy PC keyboards locally instead of using the net,
because they always did wear off the lettering well within the warranty
period with the very long Microsoft and Logitech warrantys. But when
I couldn’t get the latest mouse or keyboard locally, bought it
electronically
and when the mouse failed, all it took was a phone call to get the
replacement
shipped out and for the carrier to pick up the old one when he delivered
the replacement. With the keyboard, with a keytop that came off and
couldn’t be replaced, they didn’t want the old one back and all it took
was a phone call to get the replacement sent. With an earlier Logitech
mouse which also failed, they couldn’t supply a replacement for the
rather unusual mouse, so gave me a full refund so I had the use of
it for free for years.

Now reluctant to buy stuff this way in future, whatever the saving

More fool you.