Ordered waterpump and thermostat housing from Repco for $132.
Priced same gear on Ebay $78 delivered .
Cancelled Repco order. Now I am all for buying locally but this ended up a bit stiff .
Just cant work out why such a huge difference. The Ebay suppliers had shops are not back yarders .

One difference is that Repco is making large profits. Another difference is their warranty.

Other sellers may sell inferior product. That usually is OK, but not always.

Still other sellers keep their overhead costs low, and pass the savings in to the customer.

I buy local. From Amazon.com which is local to Seattle.

I'm surprised there are so few retailers in Australia which sell over the internet. They are letting other companies take their customers.

Buy the products that meet your needs best. If that means over the internet, then do so. Retailers, particularly in Australia refuse to modify their business practices to suit the modern age of worldwide shopping.

With 100-200% mark-up on retail products here in Australia being the norm, its no wonder that online retailers can still make a good buck and undercut traditional stores by a significant amount.

I too like to support the local stores in my area, but if they are unable to supply me the product, then ill buy elsewhere, weather its on the net or from a store out of state.

I like to look around at shops and get an idea of what I want then I will shop around and find a cheaper price via the net, I'll then go to a store and say I can order it online for x$ and if they can come close to matching it I'll buy from them but if not I'll check product numbers and place my order online

I try shop locally but prices are crazy. Another issue is a lot of the weird stuff I need isn't available easily from retail locally due to such small demand. Forces me to go to internet.

M18 nuts 1.5 thread sorry so need to go internet for propper bung for sensor.
one way fuel check valve. . No.

Wideband o2 gauge set ups. Sorry we dont sell that, only narrow band... wtf.

repco has the overheads of running a store (premises) with employees, and usually provide a service, not just the parts
they'll never be able to compete with online stores

Full service auto parts stores here have overheads of running a store (premises) with employees AND are competitive online. They have web shopping pages in addition to physical stores. Check out http://m.napaonline.com or http://m.oreillyauto.com to name just a couple of our local stores.

I went to multiple bolt shops and finally found these on the net ... where else do you get 12mm heads with phillips screw in an M8 bolt (just like original) ?

www.bolted.com.au No I don't know these guys but I am getting a couple of packs delivered

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