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Out of curiosity, beyond giving an order of magnitude range for the kit price, what relevance is the MSRP? If you look around and a kit you want is going for $45 to $60 everywhere, does it matter if the MSRP is $20 or $125?
KL
MSRP has plenty of relevance. The MSRP/List Price is the selling price a manufacturer recommends for a particular item. If the actual MSRP for a particular kit is $125 and is going for $45-$60, you're getting a good deal. If, on the other hand, the actual MSRP is $20 and is going for $45-$60, you're getting hosed.
The problem I have when a retailer displays a MSRP in conjunction with an advertised sale is that there is no way of knowing whether the retailer is, in fact, displaying the manufacturer's actual MSRP; or, he's just throwing up a Bravo Sierra number to make the sale price look better than it actually is. Sale price is the markup between MSRP and the wholesale price the retailer pays. If the sale price is 5-10% off the MSRP, it's not a bargain; but, it's something. If it's 25-30% off MSRP, now you're talking good deal. If one bothers to check what a manufacturer ("A") actually lists as a MSRP for said item as opposed to what the retailer ("B") claims it is, that helps in determining whether the retailer is dealing from the top of the deck or is simply attempting to gouge you. If "B" is higher than "A", you're getting the business, not a real deal.
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What's ironic about this argument is that you guys choose to live in one of the most expensive areas of the country, freely paying a premium "to be able to buy a cheeseburger at 3 o'clock in the morning" . . . For $22.50.
The only people stupid enough to fork over 22 bucks for a burger are the same dopes who pay $18 for a locally sourced, organic kale and free range egg sandwich made on a gluten-free, artisanally curated sourdough roll and wash it down with a $10 latte made with fair trade coffee beans individually wrapped in silk and transported by schooner to a dock on the Brooklyn waterfront, then delivered to their final destination by a red bearded-dressed-like-a-19th Century-newspaper-boy-messenger riding a Penny Farthing. The ironic part of this is that these selfsame gourmands aren't native New Yorkers. They are transplants from those less expensive tract home cul d'sac communities located in flyover states west of Hoboken. They aren't really paying for it themselves, though. Their over-indulgent parents are subsidizing their playcation here. That's why you see them sitting around in faux-hemian establishments blogging away for hours about the wonders of buying "loosies" at the corner bodega from the first to fifteenth of every month. After that, these places are deserted and these frivolous urban explorers are reduced to subsisting on a diet of ramen, Fruit Loops and whatever they get after dumpster diving through restaurant waste containers and trash bags left outside of supermarkets after closing. I have photos of these fiber optic cable-limbed hyenas descending on a pile of trash to prospect for delicacies as soon as the supermarket on my block closes up for the night. Another irony is that more than half live in the same "luxury" apartment building as I do. Their parents foot the rent.
I bemoan the closing of a Polish meat market more than that of a LHS. Real kielbasa doesn't come vac-packed in a supermarket meat section. You can always find a model; but, you can't always find good kielbasa.
