Another fact:

Most companies take the wholesalers list price and markup 20-25 %...which would explain the high prices.

Some of us take the discounted price... offered to us by the wholesaler and add our markup ...which generally works out cheaper than the price you would pay... if you were to buy directly from the wholesaler.

All wholesaler sell directly to the public ...not just the ones which use it as a clever sales pitch.... just the discount structure is different.