r40 lamps

phred

Member
looking for the least expensive place to buy r40, med base, 300 watt lamps. I need to re-lamp my local high school, and it will cost me over $1500 to to this to 9 Altman strips at $13.60/lamp. Know anybody cheaper than this? They don't need to be full spectrum.
 
Contact me off line and I will provide you with a very long list of sources to call on your own in finding a better price. The more places you call, the better your price especially when bought in volume. Than again it's a question of if your school allows for purchases in the open as opposed to designated sources. Anyone will possibly sell you lamps, even Home Depot should be able to special order lamps for you, but often it's a question of the school distract in already having sources for them and in not wanting to get ripped off by who you choose to shop at or open up new accounts for gear they can already get - price being arbitrary as opposed to paperwork. They frequently stick with those known sources, or on the part of the vendor it's often a question of if they really want to sell you something when the school board often also takes their own sweet time in paying the bill. This can have it's own effect on your pricing.

Though I have not bought this lamp before I would expect my own bill would be in the range of about $4.00 per lamp given I can get 150w versions for $2.35. This is also given I'm buying about $100K worth of lamps per year. Yesterday I bought 100 MSR 575/2 lamps for $8,200 from that same source I quote the price on R-Lamps to. It's on a Net 30 account meaning it's going to be paid within 30 days. Even if I had a primary source for you, my own pricing would be far different.

What company anyone uses is very personal in how many sources they have sent the bid out to (I at very least send a bid out to five sources if not up to thirty, I also try to bulk up that order as much as possible to make it much more in dollar value thus worth the special pricing beyond list price) and who by way of service or lack there of they already buy lamps from frequently. Once you place the order what's going to come up that is going to stand in the way on the supplier end of you really getting your lamps? Plus that vendor's ability to get the lamps you need or want which is very dependant upon their own volume and ability to get such things from the manufacturer. I have a 10% discount off directly thru one manufacturer, my suppliers often thus have a lower discount and can provide lamps cheaper even after cutting their profit. It's also frequently a question of how fast you need them.

Much less it's also frequently a question of what specific brand and type of lamp you need. Offshore brands will be cheaper than domestic ones that fairly well follow the lamp specification you designate. Frequently a China special will work just as well in your application as a GE or other name brand, but there is always a question of which one is going to work verses which one is going to cost you more money than you save in initial cost. Part of the bid is in ensuring what you buy is what you want for the price given. Some companies will price out that "Off Shore" lamp that will be cheap, and it might work fine, but also frequently won't live up to your expectations. Other companies will seem expensive but are attempting to sell you a specific brand of domestic lamp which operates within your expected norm for the lamp.

What specific r-40 300 w. lamp are you looking for should be a specific factor in your pricing given it's the lamp specification or brand over price that's a factor. Be very specific if you want what you are paying for. Lamps by the way are not cheap. It's a factor in doing business. Unfortunately those places that can least afford them are given the highest prices but the only other option would be communism where quality control goes down signifigantly with market value and demand.

Perls of wisdom hopefully. Asking who others buy their lamps from might or might not be of use to you. Depends upon how many they buy per year or other factors individual to the person buying and the source. Plus if you can even purchase from that source by way of the administration. By the way, I'm not going to offer a price on how much I would sell such lamps to you for because private time is very much seperate from work time. Thus the sources I have are sources and after that, it's on you to invest your own time in quoting out what you would pay for lamps dependant upon your own patience. Have fun and by the way, E-Mail is much easier to deal with than calling such sources on a volume order. Should you be a school system, what other lamps and gear such as tape, even stage equipment can you you bulk up your order with much less have it added to other school's or sources such as the community theater's needs in bulking up that one time only order? The more dollar value to your order, the more you could expect to save. Shop around and bulk it up as much as possible.
 
ship made a good point about who you can actually buy stuff from at the school. Public schools/districts are often going to have a vendor list. Stuff has to be bought from a vendor. If this is the case, the purchasing person at the district will have a list of vendors, and you can call around and haggle the local folks. If you're at a private school, or a small district (e.g. a few schools), this may very well not be an issue.

I'd figure out whether or not you can even buy from the cheapest guy on the planet before you start shopping the country.[/i]
 

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