Hi Yang, Not sure if you read this promo but you get a helmet and set of lenses with the frames - for what it's worth to you These glasses are all still made in Italy (they refuse to move production to China in order to manage quality) and has won countless awards (too many to mention) so difficult to respond to your description of the glasses - try a pair sometime - they are really great - especially the impactX photo lenses. Some guys sell these at almost no margin and they can do that not only because they bring them in grey and "skip" the dealers but because they have the luxury to buy from overseas at much lower ruling exchange rates than what we may have had to pay when we imported originally - consider not too long ago the R/EURO was at R14 plus - currently R9.30. Not that this is the problem of a consumer who just wants the best possible price - we understand that and that is why we will never be upset when someone buys online (it is your right as a consumer). Finally with eyewear (all brands) - the biggest cost is not production (you have to make peace with this fact because the material cost is low) but marketing. sponsorships, branding, logistics, etc. Rudy is probably an exception where the manufacturing cost is more than most brands although the biggest cost is still indirect and "overhead" related. Let me give you an example - The Rydon Crystal with photoclear lenses did not exist until we (SA distributors) asked for this model to be manufactured specifically for us - we marketed it aggresively (and spent serious money on this) because we felt it was something special (it was) and it then exploded world-wide. Unfortunately when we had almost 3000 of these made 2.5 years ago the exchange rate was not fantastic (R14 to EUR) but again this is not your problem. Where we have a concern with local suppliers importing grey is that they sit back and capitalise on our marketing efforts - when the market was established (at our expense) for these they started to scout the globe for cheap sources and sold them on direct at super low margins - the lower rates obviously helped a lot and if it moved the other way we would not be exchanging these posts. This unfortunately leaves the impression that our pricing is out of line - there will always be exceptions and cheap product (from clearouts / discounters / etc.) online and it remains the consumer's choice to purchase product here - but this is our challenge: to provide quality product at competitive prices to the public and through our dealers and we are constantly working towards this goal. The current promotion (free helmet and set of smoke lenses with every Rydon with ImpactX photoclear lenses) is an effort to give the consumer even more value than they would get by buying grey or direct product while not selling for less than we paid for the product. I am probably opening a "can of worms" here which is not the intention but I can assure you our margins are not fantastic (especially in these times) and we are working everyday to meet certain price points that make our products affordable in the local market compared to the online stores and local grey importers. Regards ASG
