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Aircraft Spruce USA vs. Europe: shocking price difference

I googled the spare price parts for my Goodyear brake linings this evening:

P/N 9511271 at aircraftspruce.com: 358 USD
P/N 9511271 at aircraftspruce.eu: 624,90 EUR

P/N 9511269 at aircraftspruce.com: 186,85 USD
P/N 9511269 at aircaftspruce.eu: 225,37 EUR

When I last bought brake linings about 3 years ago, I got them from Troyes Aviation (my usual airframe parts supplier) for a price much closer to the US offerings.

Makes one wonder about the other prices on aircraftspruce.eu …

LOAN Wiener Neustadt Ost, Austria

I have given up on aircraftspruce.eu, almost. If I need a couple of nuts or a bolt, the .eu is OK due to much lower shipping. Every other thing is much more expensive, and they usually don’t have anything in stock. Just some minutes ago I ordered nav lights along with some lots of Nuvite of a grade they don’t have at .eu

Aveoflash LSA, wing mount nav/position/strobe LED

ACS US: US$ 672 /pr
ACS EU: € 734.88 /pr

These things are made in Europe, in the Czech Republic, and it’s cheaper to get them from across the Atlantic, craziness.
Note: these prices are excl VAT. I think .eu prices are incl. VAT as a default (no VAT to Norway).

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

Isn’t that because Spruce .eu is nothing to do with Spruce USA but is a totally separate company

which is either minting it in Europe (easily done, on the back of the ripoff aviation parts distribution pricing here) or is not getting any reseller discount from the USA.

My guess (having been in a business since 1978) is that most of Spruce USA’s business is to end users, not to resellers, and they probably have not built in the extra margin which resellers demand. It’s a dilemna which every business faces. Selling to end users is brilliant for cash flow and for margins, but you penetrate X % of the market where X is a very fixed number and that’s it, and to go beyond that you have to deal with the resellers who add zero value to your product (in fact they often damage your brand because they don’t support it) but they penetrate deeper into the market. But if you build in the margin needed to feed the reseller discount, you end up uncompetitive to end users.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

@LeSving, I didn’t compare today’s pricing but for Nuvite you might take a look at the Perfect Polish website Link In the past they have been the best source…

Thanks Silvaire. The prices are comparable, within 1 dollar. But Perfect Polish have 1 lbs jars that are comparably cheaper than 2*1/2 lbs jars. Aicraftspruce have all grades, but not all jars.

Aircraftspruce is the best overall. They have all kinds of stuff. When ordering to Norway, the shipping is typically 40 dollars and up (to several hundred dollars), so it feels very important to get it all at one place to minimize shipping cost. In other words I always end up getting lots of stuff I don’t really need, but might some day

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

Maybe you’ll need a 1 lb jar of Nuvite some day

Shipping cost can add up and it surely makes sense to combine orders on different items, especially from Europe, and even in the US. I can order from Aircraft Spruce and the stuff will be delivered the next day, but if you do that for every item individually as it comes to mind the shipping cost adds up. Its still less than flying to the store though

which is either minting it in Europe (easily done, on the back of the ripoff aviation parts distribution pricing here) or is not getting any reseller discount from the USA.

They are not the only one. LAS Aerospace have this on their web site:

LAS is the UK and European distributor for the well known American company Aircraft Spruce and Specialty.
We keep many popular items in stock and for everything else we have shipments leaving Aircraft Spruce almost every day. Items are usually delivered to your door within 5 working days subject to stock availability.

You can check price and availability of any spruce item by searching using their part number. Our prices include carriage from the US and import duties, so the price you see is the price you pay!

I have ordered some stuff from them as well, but they somehow manage to create larger shipping costs than from the US.

Some years ago I ordered Tungsten bucking bars. Tungsten (Wolfram) is a metal that is almost as heavy as gold, but hard as steel. These are extremely expensive, typically 200 dollars a piece, and 100 dollars in shipping cost. However, they are all made in China, where all the Tungsten in the world is made, and I ordered them there from the factory at 1/4 the price and zero shipping cost. The fact that they are cheap in China is understandable, but zero shipping cost? how do they do that?

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

Maybe you’ll need a 1 lb jar of Nuvite some day

I ordered a total of 2 lbs. 1 lb of grade F9 needed as the first run on 6061 sheets (non clad). Then 1/2 lb of C and finally 1/2 lb of S. Guess what I will do for some weeks But the result will be shiny indeed. I tried some painting, and I can only conclude I am no painter…

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

LeSving, if you can find a Cyclo polishing machine it’ll be useful when you get to grade S… but very expensive. I’d loan you mine but the shipping would be very expensive! Either way your arms are going to be tired.

Tungsten is the best stuff for balancing weights, it machines like iron and you can screw it in a tapped hole. But I digress…

100% Nuvite S Grade + Cyclo polisher :

Last Edited by Michael at 25 Mar 06:50
FAA A&P/IA
LFPN
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