New bathrooms: bathroom studios, intermediaries, and fantasy prices

Yes, then just don't participate in it. I also connected the washbasins and kitchen myself. Not the toilets, I didn't trust myself to do that back then, but today I would do it myself after spending over 800 EUR on each toilet, which also doesn't give you better bowel movements... You can transfer a hundred to the studio.

That misses the point. I get exactly the models from Reuter and co that were also available in the studio, from reputable manufacturers. If I order them like that, I currently come to 11k euros, and the dealers also take their margin. That’s quite a bit away from the 20k studio figure via an intermediary company, which doesn’t include any other services besides ceramics, fittings, and furniture.

I can’t follow your logic. Why don’t you just order from Reuter, Baumarkt and co now?

If you see your TV at Mediamarkt for 1000 euros, and get it by shipping for 800 euros, then you buy it there too.

Not at all. For you that is apparently obvious, but for others it is not; because dealers and installers also live off something. For society as a whole, it is certainly not helpful if everyone only goes for the cheapest of everything and only attributes the negative to the intermediate stations.

There are certainly rip-off artists in the industry. But not mainly. I find it a shame that you approach the matter so negatively and also "wrong" or incomplete. The sanitary items have to be stored, transported, prepaid, installed, and guaranteed. That's a bit more than just comparing internet prices.

Just build your house yourself, I would say. Then you can order everything your heart desires online directly. Or go to the sanitary retail dealer, they also serve private customers.

Installers often get the goods from their local wholesaler at a higher price than they can find on the internet. This is justified because a lot of service is involved, which the wholesaler naturally wants to be paid for. (partly 2 delivery tours per day, orders by 10:00, delivery at 13:00, uncomplicated returns on stock items, direct contact person, etc.) If the installer only sells the material (without installation), then of course he wants to make a few euros profit for the effort, and the material is about 25-35% more expensive than the cheapest online.

If the whole thing is going to be installed, it looks different again. Although no one has to starve from the hourly wages demanded on construction sites, if money is to be made from it, it has to come from somewhere. So the profit is made with the goods turnover. The alternative would be hourly wages in the triple-digit range, as in the automotive trade, where apparently nobody cares anymore; then the material could also be sold relatively transparently in terms of price. But nobody wants that either.