Grippa must be laughing all the way to the bank with the amount of ridiculously overpriced crap they sell us mugs.
How much for some downpipe and clamps?
I thnk we have to be honest with ourselves and accept that us 'plebs' aren't their target market in the same way other suppliers such as Ionics don't see us as their target market either.
40 years ago my late brother said to me; " there are two types of money in this world, commercial money and residential money. There is a massive gap between them. Sometimes commercial money will try to solicit work for residential money to make more profit but if you are commericial money then you don't work for residential money. Don't fall into that trap."
Grippa are on a different level to us as they target big industrial companies that charge eye watering prices for work they do. They also will have strict policies to adhere to when it comes to the type of equipment they buy. Grippa and others cater to their requirements even offering leasing facilities for complete systems. That's not for us, its for the benefit of large business conglomerates.
Grippa carry a large inventory of stock which costs money to maintain. If they don't have it in stock, they have to guarantee that they can lay their hands on it virtually immediately from other sources.
25 years ago Black and Decker started to wind down power tool production at Spennymoor as the cost of manufacturing new product was too expensive in the UK at that time.
A 13mm 240v 2 speed hammer action drill including a Rhom chuck was costing them £6.97 to completely manufacture including the packaging. At that time those drills retailed for around £80.00.
They started a factory up in a country which was previouslybehind the then 'iron curtain'.
