Replacement Lamp Pricing: Beware of Rip-Offs!
In the world of e-commerce, sometimes price means everything. Replacement Projector Lamps can be purchased very easily on the internet, but how does one know what prices are fair, and real. Online lamp buyers often notice just an advertised price for a lamp, and have little or no recourse when they buy product that is being sold for a low price and ends up being something they can’t use. Here are a few things to know about replacement lamp pricing and why some advertised prices on the web are less than a bargain.
There are only a few actual manufacturers of replacement lamps. Lamps that have been made by the manufacturer of your brand of projector or, Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) Lamps are usually the best option for replacement lamps. Even though there are only a handful of OEM lamp makers on the market, there are even fewer direct distributors of these lamps. Because there are only a small number of distributors who have direct relationships with OEM producers, the “buy rate” is about the same for all direct distributors. In addition, re-sellers who buy from direct distributors and mark-up the lamps before selling them to the public keeps that pricing segment within a few dollars of each different re-seller.
In theory, if direct distributors have similar buy rates, and re-sellers have similar wholesale buy rates, then there should not be a giant range of prices in the replacement lamp market. This system of buying and selling replacement lamps creates a built-in pricing regulator of sorts.
The introduction and availability of “Compatible” lamps has thrown a curve ball at the established way replacement lamps are sold. Compatible lamps are basically copies of the OEM lamps. They are reverse engineered to meet the exact product dimensions as your OEM part. The difference is, compatible lamps can be made by anyone who has the facilities and materials to do it with. It does not take a genius to figure out that fluctuation in price to market on compatible lamps will be a regular happening. Re-sellers can also generate compatible lamps by shipping the manufacturing process to Asia and other off-shore production facilities. This adds yet another layer to an already cloudy replacement lamp picture. The reliability of compatible lamps has been reasonably consistent to date, but the difference in price between a compatible and it’s OEM counterpart are 15%-20% or more in some cases.
OEM Lamps and Compatible lamps are different solutions to the same problem, a projector in need of a replacement light source. Know that when there are large differences in price, this simply shows differences in types of lamps. Projector Lamp Center does offer compatible lamps, but does not attempt to pass them off as OEM parts. When shopping on the web for lamps, look for, or ask about OEM lamp pricing, and don’t be fooled into buying a compatible lamp when you really wanted an OEM.
