Guides · Buying at volume
A trade quote arrives as a single number per unit. Here is what sits inside it, why it differs from UK retail, and how to check the one you have been given.
If you buy equipment for a business, you have had the experience of being handed a price with nothing behind it. One number per unit, a total at the bottom, and no way to tell whether it is a good deal, a bad one, or the same deal you were offered last year with a different logo on it.
That is a poor position to negotiate from, and it is worse when you are the one who has to justify the figure to a client or a committee. So this is a plain breakdown of what a trade price for camera equipment is actually made of. It is written from the supply side, because that is where we sit, and it should be useful whoever you end up buying from.
Almost every trade price begins as an ex-works figure. Ex-works means the price of the goods sitting at the seller's premises, with nothing else included. No freight, no insurance, no duty, no tax. Everything from that warehouse door onwards is somebody's cost to carry, and the question of whose it is turns out to be the most important thing in any quote you receive.
That starting figure is not the same everywhere, because manufacturers set different recommended prices in different markets. The same body from the same factory can carry a materially different number in one region than another, for reasons that have nothing to do with the product: local distributor margin, marketing commitments, warranty scheme costs, and what the market will bear. This is ordinary international trade, and it is the gap that any importer is working with.
Between that warehouse and your loading bay, four things get added. Any quote you are given has made a decision about each one, whether or not it tells you.
Freight and insurance. Air freight is priced on weight and volume, not on what the goods are worth. That falls unevenly across a mixed order: a camera body, a long lens and a memory card cost very different amounts to move relative to their value. A supplier who spreads freight as a flat percentage across every line is averaging rather than costing, which means some of your lines are quietly subsidising others.
Customs duty. Smaller than most buyers expect, and worth knowing precisely. Under the UK tariff, digital cameras and interchangeable camera lenses currently both carry a nil third-country duty rate. Duty is set against the commodity code of the specific item rather than the category, so a mixed order can still attract charges on other categories, and rates do change. But if a supplier is pointing at duty on bodies and lenses to explain why a price is high, that is worth questioning. You can check any code yourself on the UK Integrated Online Tariff.
Import VAT. With duty at nil on the core items, this is the import charge that actually matters. It is charged at the standard rate on the customs value plus any duty plus the freight, which is the part most people get wrong: it is not twenty per cent of the goods, it is twenty per cent of everything that has happened to the goods by the time they reach the border. Whether it is recoverable depends on your own VAT position, not your supplier's, and it is the single largest line in most import calculations.
Payment and currency. Stock bought in one currency and sold in another carries an exchange spread, and the rate moves between the day you are quoted and the day the supplier actually pays for the goods. A quote with a validity period is a supplier being honest about this. A quote with no expiry date is a supplier who has either priced in a large cushion or has not thought about it.
Add those four to the ex-works figure and you have the landed cost: what the goods actually cost to be standing in the United Kingdom, cleared, before anybody has made a penny on them. Every legitimate trade price is the landed cost plus a margin. That is the whole model.
None of the above explains the full gap between a trade price and a high street price, and it would be dishonest to pretend it does. The rest is not tax and it is not shipping. It is the cost of the route.
A product that reaches a UK shop through the official distribution chain has paid for that chain: the national distributor's margin, the retailer's margin, retail premises, sales staff, marketing support, and the administration of a manufacturer-backed warranty scheme. Those are real costs and they buy real things. They are simply not costs that every buyer needs to pay for, particularly a buyer taking twelve units in one consignment who does not need a shop floor, a demonstration, or a salesperson.
A shorter route is cheaper because it is shorter. Where it genuinely differs is warranty, and you should ask about that directly rather than assume it. We set out how ours works on our warranty page, and we would say the same to you about anyone else's: get it in writing before you commit, not after.
You do not need to reconstruct a supplier's landed cost to know whether their number is reasonable. Four checks will tell you most of what you need.
Compare like for like, including the terms. A price that excludes duty and import VAT is not competing with one that includes them, and the difference is not small. Establish first whether the number you have been given is the number you will pay, or the number before customs invoices you separately.
Check the gap is plausible. A genuine trade price on current-generation stock sits meaningfully below UK retail, but within a range that reflects a real supply chain. A number far below anything else you have been quoted is not a better deal, it is a different situation: end-of-line stock, a unit that is not what you think it is, or a supplier who will not be able to fulfil at that price and will come back to you later.
Ask what happens if it is not available. Trade supply runs on stock that moves. The honest answer to this question is a lead time and an alternative, not a promise. A supplier who has never once told you something is unavailable is a supplier who has not checked.
Price the whole list, not the headline item. It is easy to be keen on the body everybody compares and quietly rebuild the margin on the batteries, cards and cases that nobody checks. Ask for the full itemisation and look at the lines you were not paying attention to.
Whoever you buy from, a quote you can act on has these things in it. If yours does not, ask, because every one of them is a question the supplier has already had to answer internally in order to give you a price at all.
Itemised unit and line pricing, so you can see where the cost sits rather than one figure for the lot.
Whether duty and import VAT are inside the price, and if so, that there is nothing further to pay on delivery.
Confirmed availability and a lead time for each line, with the items that are not currently available flagged as such.
The warranty terms in full, including who handles a claim and how long cover runs, written into the quote rather than referred to elsewhere.
A validity period. Prices on imported stock move with availability and exchange rates. A quote that is honest about how long it stands is more useful than one that pretends it stands forever.
Who you will be dealing with if something goes wrong, and a way to reach them that is not a contact form.
Not the word "import", which describes a route rather than a risk. These:
A price with no breakdown and no willingness to give one. A supplier who knows their landed cost can itemise it. A supplier who cannot is either guessing or hiding something, and both will cost you later.
Vagueness about warranty. "Covered" is not a warranty term. Who repairs it, who pays the carriage, and for how long, are warranty terms.
Pressure attached to a payment deadline. Availability genuinely does move, and a real supplier will explain why a price expires. That is different from urgency used as a technique.
No verifiable company behind it. Any UK supplier asking for a bank transfer should be a registered company you can look up. Ours is number 16431106, registered in England and Wales, and we would rather you checked it than took our word.
Because the buyers we work with are usually specifying equipment for somebody else, and the awkward question is rarely the price. It is being asked to justify it. A buyer who understands what sits inside a number can defend it to a client, a committee or a finance director without having to take the supplier's word for anything.
That is how we quote: itemised, with duty and import VAT already paid before dispatch so there is nothing to settle on delivery, availability confirmed line by line, and our own 12-month warranty written into the document before you commit. If you want that on a specific list, send it over and you will have it back within one working day. You can see how that works on our trade supply page.
Working on a quote from somebody else and not sure what you are looking at? Send it to us and we will tell you plainly what we think, whether or not you end up buying from us.
Priced properly, itemised in full
Models or categories, quantities and your deadline. A rough list is fine. You will have a firm itemised price back within one working day.