norman wrote:
As an outsider (Europe) looking in, the thing that strikes me as odd is that there is a "delivery charge" at all. Presumably, you can't buy the item without delivery, therefore why not just include it in the price? It's not like it's optional or something.
Many years ago, in response to consumer complaints, the federal government established "standards" for how the price of a motor vehicle was to be advertised. This is called the "Monroney Sticker", and the method of showing pricing on this sticker and any other price sticker added to the Monroney is established by federal law.
For example, delivery
to the dealer and "dealer preparation" are not included in the base price of a motor vehicle. Putting delivery to the dealer outside the published retail price makes sense, as it is a much longer distance to deliver a Detroit made vehicle to Los Angeles (3675 km) than Cleveland (272 km). And, Anchorage, Alaska is 6200 km from Detroit. Last, but not least, Hawaii is 3900 km by ship from Los Angeles, plus the 3675 km to Detroit. How would you average these distances to get a single cost of delivery into the base price without upsetting the people in Cleveland?
Thus, each buyer is shown the alleged actual delivery charge to his locale on the price "sticker" on a new motor vehicle, as it would vary greatly due to the large distances involved in the US market.
If one looks at Piaggio's EU prices, they are established by country. The largest distance across any European country is about 1000 km. Much easier to include delivery to the retailer in the base price with distances of that magnitude.
At the risk of sounding cynical, in the US, it's not what you get for your money, but what you think you get that's important. Several years back, I had a neighbor who was quite pleased to be able to buy a car for only $100 over the "invoice price" to the dealer. He really thought he had caused the dealer some "pain". What he was unaware of is that the "invoice" a dealer receives for a car normally has no relationship to what the dealer really pays for the car, as the auto makers grant rebates and cash incentives to dealers based upon the quantity and mix of cars they buy from the automaker. But, the important thing to my neighbor was believing he made the dealer "squirm".
Rebates are a long standing practice in the US auto industry. Back in the 60's, my family's business was able to buy 4 panel trucks below actual cost from our next door neighbor's dealership because he needed to sell those four trucks to get a bigger rebate on all the other cars he sold during a 3 month period. He got significantly more money in rebates than he lost in selling the 4 trucks below cost, and he had to sell 4 truck to get those rebates. In fact, he approached us on the deal. We never thought to go to him for trucks, as his clientele were strictly suburban upscale auto buyers, and he never had a truck on display in his showroom.
Many times, things are not as they appear to be on the surface.
Al