Equippment prices in your area

[Leni]

Hi,

i've noticed that not many details can be found online on the prices of laboratory equipment like HPLC, GC, LC/MS etc.
I think this sort of information may come into use when one needs to buy a piece of equipment and would like to know some price quotes, since in most countries each vendor has one distributor who has exclusive rights for equipment, thus they can bend prices according to their own will and one has no way of knowing if those prices are high or low or average.

In order to help analysts, lab managers, universities all over the world, i think a topic where one can post his/her experiences might be useful.

So if you have received any price quotes recently, please share the location, type of equipment and price, so all analyst will be able to judge if price quotes they receive are fair or not.

[bunnahabhain]

If you want to save money, get yourself offers from more than one vendor. Then you can play off vendor A againts vendor B. Tell vendor A a fancy price of the equipment of vendor B sells (say, the quote you have minus 20 %) and vice versa. This is what the market works like, also for scientific equipment. Knowing about regional price differences won't help you very much. Importing a machine from an other country only because of the saving of some (thousand) ($€£¥...) is not worth the hassle with customs and other issues (the vendor won't be very helpful in case of trouble during warranty time).
However, it would still be nice to know

So let's start:
Location: Germany
Instrument: Used Agilent 1100 HPLC (quaternary pump and VWD) + Micromass Quattro Ultima Pt + MassLynx 4.1 inlcuding ESI+APCI source and two Edwards forepumps: 80 k€, late 2013.

[Peter Apps]

What's the point ? If you have more than one supplier play them off against one another - and then don't cry when the lowest bid comes with the worse after-sales service. If you have only one supplier they are not going to lower the price just because something similar is available for less somewhere else.

Peter

[lmh]

The price doesn't just depend on location - it depends on who you are, and how much cash the company representatives think you have in your pocket, whether they are trying to get a foot-hold in your organisation, how desperate they are for more sales before the end of the year, and loads of other factors. This is probably one of the reasons why it is so hard to get a straight answer on how much a piece of equipment will cost.

The other problem is that there are multiple prices for different purposes. For example, every manufacturer has list-costs, but they won't be desperately keen to tell you them, in case they look expensive relative to another manufacturer, who they suspect might be telling you actual costs. So you can just about wring the list-cost out of a rep if you promise that you will talk to them about real costs before going elsewhere. The list cost is just like the price of a new best-seller book when it comes out: no one actually pays it, but it's much bigger than what the publisher/manufacturer intends to charge, so that you, the customer, feel you are getting a good deal.

Also, I notice, everyone seems to get personalised deals. Working in academia, I am often offered an academic discount. But talking to an industrial friend, I find that his company gets offered almost the same discount, but with some other name. So the companies are persuading me that they're doing me a favour because I'm academic, when in fact they're just giving me the price that they think is profitable enough for them, given all the other factors in action at the moment... A slightly more dubious area is that of ex-demo equipment. I can think of at least one manufacturer (naming no names!) who in quick succession sold ex-demo equipment to several groups of whom I'm aware, and in every case actually delivered new, unused equipment. One can't help wondering if they were actually using the "ex-demo" tag to justify reducing their list-price, having commercially painted themselves into a corner by setting their list price at a level the market couldn't bear?

As regards playing one manufacturer off against another: it's a compromise. I see Peter Apps' point that if we push manufacturers to absolute subsistence point, then their after sales service will suffer. But on the other hand, if you allow a manufacturer (again naming no names!) to think that you are only looking at their product, and are committed to their product only, then don't be surprised if the price is substantially higher - up to double the cost that someone else is getting, because they sowed seeds of doubt at the right moment.

Personally, I think the right thing to do is to be open and honest about going to a competitive tender, but make it clear that price is not the only factor on which the tender responses will be assessed. Quality matters too, both of the instrument, and also of the after-sales service. Again personally, I am always completely open about tenders. I have no time for those who set up a tender but have made up their minds before they start - that is dishonest, and disrespectful of the reps who are going to go to a lot of trouble to respond to the tender. The good thing about a well-run tender is that you often find out a lot about manufacturers and their products, and end up with something quite different to, and better than, your original preconceptions.

[Leni]

First of all thanks for your replies guys...

@bunnahabhain

Yes, exactly my thoughts...it doesn't help much knowing prices in the region or in the world, but it would be interesting to know, because what do you do if vendors make a price agreement, not quoting lower than a sum? Yes, i know that is "mostly excluded" in Germany (i'm not really so sure...) but in Romania and other semi-3rd world countries where you can't even imagine how corrupt everything and everyone is... it's a real possibility that they agree to keep HPLC and other equipment prices up. Why not? There are only like...3-4vendors(one for each manufacturer), and if they all agree to not go below 10.000euros profit (which in romania is an average citizens salary for 2 years, and believe it or not 50 times the minimum wage...this sum is a huge profit here and not only here...and would cover the vendors costs for staff for almost a year...just by selling 1 HPLC!). Taking into account the corruptness of the country, it's not like there's anyone you can turn to and sue anyone for unfair competition or anything...in this case it would help to know what prices are in other countries in order to at least be able and ask the vendor "why am i paying .... euro more for a machine that costs ... euro in Germany or Swede or whatever"...just my opinion..interesting things might surface. Why am i saying this: without giving a name i've seen situations after talking to colleagues at other labs where for the same equipment the same vendor asked for prices which are almost double (45-50000$ to 70-75000$). How could one justify such diffences? And how can one lab owner or manager know if he's paying a right price or is being screwed over...as one has no one else to ask for a comparison for the same equipment.

@Peter Apps

yes...that's the problem, you've put your finger on it. I don't know how things are in the US, but in central-eastern europe each manufacturer has only one vendor/country who has exclusive rights and there's an agreement between them to not enter each other's territory, even though EU legislation doesn't enforce any restrictions on trade of merchandise between countries. They just simply have an unwritten agreement (or maybe it's written), and if you even as much as request a quote from the vendor of a different country than your own, they will redirect the email without any questions asked to the vendor of your own country and you will most likely get an angry and sometimes even threatening call from your local vendor saying that because of your impertinence they will charge you extra, give you a more limited warranty, not service your equipment etc. People who have ever tried asking vendors from other countries than their own know what i'm talking about, how upset vendors get about one daring to ask anyone else a question or ask for a quote. This doesn't only apply to HPLC or GC vendors, but also analytical column manufacturer's vendors, or vendors of other types of lab equipment...Basically there is absolutely no way to know what the real market price or value is for an HPLC or GC (or any other piece of equipment) other than the price quote your local vendor gives you. You like it you buy, if you don't, Guidelines don't allow you to function and you're closed down (GLP guidelines say your vendors must be certified, trained etc.)...it's as simple as that. It's more remiscinent of organized crime than anything legit in most aspects.

@lmh

yes...i totally agree that the prices also depend on who you are, and how much they think is in your pocket, or if they feel they are in front of a "big catch". I personally don't think it's fair that the whole price issue is such a secret, and think lab personnel should be able to find out how much a vendor is charging additionally...no matter the reason. Like for example when you buy a car you can check how much the same car would cost you in another country.For the EU this is very useful because there are no taxes and restrictions to the free movement of goods...As a comparison, if you're from the US, imagine (this is a made up situation, and doesn't intentionally refer to real vendors) you request a price quote from your NY state vendor, but you're not sure if it's the right price. You request a quote from the New Jersey state vendor just to compare. Instead of receiving the price quote, you get an angry call or email from your local vendor (who was forwarded your request), asking you to "explain yourself" why you dared ask for a price quote from someone else, because what you don't understand is that only they can provide the equipment you need. I you have a problem with their prices it's none of their business. How would you feel? What would you do? Do you think this would be a normal situation?

Unfortunately i have seen situations were one vendor offered a piece of equipment for a price of around 45000-50000$ to the company i was working at...and for 70000$ the same piece of equipment to another where i had some friends working at, and asked for my opinion. How can the price differ so much? It's simple...they know that you have no other option...there are only 3-4 vendors(one for each manufacturer) in the whole country...they can easily agree on what quotes to give a given company. Is there any way to know? No! Is there any way to go get your equipment from somewhere else? No! As with playing them one against the other...that's not a bad idea, in a real capitalist economy...but what if they all say "i don't care what other vendor offer...if you like this offer you take it, if not...we don't care". Again, what you guys need to understand is that when you get enough profit from selling just one HPLC to function for an entire year (not counting qualification which all tenders must do yearly...if they like it or not, which are extra costs also) you can simply just sit back and wait for the tender to realize he's not getting a better offer from anyone else...because all vendors do the same thing...they play the "enormous profit/equipment sold" wait game...until you run out of time, and need a piece of equipment...and what are you going to do? We all know that mostly in the pharma industry one can't afford to wait too long...I'm not sure this is what is happening, but given extreme price fluctuations from the same vendor for the same equipment, at the extreme similarity between prices i think there might be some sort of price fixing. Also, i find it highly suspicious that vendors form other countries are not allowed to sell their equipment and do service. What if the costs for the vendor of a different countries vendor would be a lot smaller (ex. direct low-cost flight from another country VS. no direct flights/no low cost flights/long distance to be traveled by car from my own country)...this is in many cases true for eastern and central europe, since Wizz air and other low cost carriers are blooming and offer plane tickets at prices cheaper than doing shorter trips by cars. Or what if i prefer the vendor form another country even if he is more expensive? Maybe he offers me better support...can i choose? No!

Again, please take into account other countries than capitalist and democratic USA or Germany, where illegal practices are more rare...and think of eastern europe, southeastern asia or other places where corruption COULD be a major factor in determining prices...it at least helps to know if the prices we pay are similar to other places, realistic...or if indeed vendors have agreements between them to keep prices up.

Here is my contribution:

Location: Romania (it was a long time ago and i don't remember the exact figures)
2012: Waters Alliance (quaternary pump with degasser, autosampler, column thermostat, Alliance 2996 PDA, Empower 2 software) - aprox. 65-70.000euro

2012: Agilent 1200 (quaternary pump with degasser, autosampler, column thermostat, DAD, OpenLab Chemstation Edition CDS software) - aprox. 40-45.000euro

i willl return with other prices also.

[Leni]

I come with further info:

Location: Romania
2015: Agilent 1260 (Quaternary pump, column thermostat, autosampler, DAD detector, OpenLab CDS) - aprox. 75000euro

is it just me or is this a bit ...you know