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Comment by silisili | Hacker News Reader

Former ASE parts guy, this is correct. My store used to invoice everything 20 to 50% off for commercial, with a 'value'(what they should charge customers) 20 to 50% over retail.

Simple fact is competition is fierce, a good shop is worth thousands per day, and don't tie up your time. Compared to Jim who wants to explain the sound his car makes, show terrible pictures of nothing important, and buy just one off brand sparkplug...well you see where this goes.

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Ok, let me get this straight. If I establish a “commercial account” with a dealer or a napa I get wholesale pricing?

There is probably a "minimum purchase annual volume" that goes along with a commercial account.

Yep. You need to buy a lot of parts though; we bought 100k/year from napa, which was the smallest account we maintained. The discount varies with how much your shop buys and how good you are at negotiating. Not sure why you have "commercial account" in quotes, wholesale pricing for business customers is available at lots of businesses. Your grocery store likely offers this exact same thing, commercial terms for businesses aren't exactly a secret.

Just to add to your example list, as I house painter, I pay perhaps 50% of what the major paint brands/retailers will charge out on the shelf for most of the products that I buy. I don't have to throw crazy 'volume' at them, but honestly, I'm sure any painter buys substantially more paint in a year than any homeowner.

They provide tiered pricing -- If I tend to buy a lot of xyz, then I get better pricing on it, etc.

Being a reasonable folk, I only mark up a handful of % off my price -- I hunch many in my industry do a similar markup off retail.

Pricing is a very strange world.

in my experience it works this way with electronic components as well

Yep! And to your door delivery, free.

As others pointed out, they require a minimum purchase volume typically.

We had one guy who wasn't a business per se, but we made him an account because he spent so much money. He was an enthusiast who was always working on other people's cars. We didn't deliver to him, though.

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