They used to do that but only 2-3% off at the most and I don’t think they do that any more. In fact if I remember rightly, you only need to be on the information page once you move the product into your shopping kart the price was set.
73 Ed.
It was only 10% if you kept hovering about the same page for a while.
In 2009 I bought 2x 4000mAhr LiPos from eBay that came from China. They came in Tyvek envelopes with no padding, you can’t do that now! Anyway they cost about £11 each. I used an online inflation calculator to tell me that inflation will have made those prices £14.85 today. Searching Hobbyking, shows a Turnigy LiPo 3S 4000mAh for £26 plus probably £5 shipping.
That’s a lot more than inflation alone. But those Hobbyking supplies are already in the UK, so there will have been shipping charges, storage charges, taxes etc. I can guarantee you I didn’t pay VAT on mine which would have added 17.5% at the time. The costs of transport are a lot more now simply because there are hazard goods rules to follow. Adding in VAT brings the effective price for my old cells to £16 compared to £26 now.
That £10 accounts for dealing with reputable company, genuine trading costs, profit, taxes etc. As trying to get these things into the UK in the normal post is illegal and unlikely to succeed (most incoming mail from China to the UK ix X-rayed to check for batteries and narcotics), the cost difference doesn’t seem too bad.
And with production and delivery affected by shutdowns etc. Capitalism’s chum “supply and demand” will affect the price. Just the way the lockdown in the UK has pushed up supermarket alcohol prices as many in the UK are drinking more. More demand combined with lots of alcohol being diverted to hand sanitizer production and a fixed production capacity = more expensive.
Hi Andy
Off topic - sorry to give you a job… looks like the link to the 12m Challenge scores for Chasers and Activators from years since has gone west.
73 Phil
I just tried the “hovering trick” last night - it looks like they no longer offer discounts in that way after 2 hours the price was still the same.
Oh well I’ll continue until more cells finally stop fully charging. Is there a “memory effect” on LIPOs like NiCads used to have, causing the problem of 3 of the 4 cells to charge to 100% but one only reaching 90 or 94%? I have two batteries and it’s a different cell in the two batteries which doesn’t fully charge, so I can’t blame the charger.
73 Ed.