Toilet from €27.90 to €500 - objective information on the price difference?

We had a rimless toilet in the apartment building that unfortunately splashed. Now we have two Keramag Icon, which just work. And they look good. Concealed installation etc. Supposedly easy to clean as well, due to fewer surfaces.

But the toilet is anyway the cheapest part of the bathroom...

Well, with bathroom furniture/sanitary items it's the same as with kitchens. It's a mafia, nothing else. The only way to get out without a stomach ache is to shop yourself and find someone who still installs the stuff properly.

Or decide beforehand what you want to spend and then buy what you get for it - this makes you satisfied in the long run and you can devote your time to your family instead of losing sleep wondering if you could have gotten a little more for your money. The Mafia stuff is pure populism. In my extended circle, there are many rich people, and I definitely wonder if everything is legitimate with some of them. However, there are no kitchen or sanitary salespeople among them. They just do a mixed calculation and pay expenses, employees, and themselves from it. If it were significantly cheaper, other companies would simply undercut them on price.

Well, as you say. The working time is charged like with any other craftsman. €80 / hour plus €50 for the apprentice is quite normal here. Travel costs as well. Then you have to add another 100-200% to the equity prices to survive? They don’t have a warehouse, everything is always ordered. Retail stores are usually not very big and located in simple areas, not aimed at walk-in customers. With other craftsmen, it works differently, for me the behavior in the sanitary and kitchen sector is incomprehensible.

For me, it was also initially incomprehensible that our [Sanitärtyp] adds 200% on top of the MSRP and thus demands four times the price of the cheapest online retailer. Then I saw the two Porsches, a white one for her, a black one for him (audacious, as a simple employed nuclear power plant chimney sweep I can barely afford an E-Class)! Most of the installers there are temporary workers. Well, you just have to make money when times allow it.

Or you decide in advance what you want to spend and then buy what you get for it – in the long run that makes you satisfied and you can dedicate your time to your family instead of spending sleepless nights thinking about whether you might have gotten a bit more for your money. The mafia thing is pure populism. In my extended circle, there are many rich people, and surely some of them I wonder if everything is above board. But kitchen and sanitary salespeople are not among them. They just do a mixed calculation and pay expenses, employees, and themselves from that. If it could be done significantly cheaper, other companies would simply undercut them on price.

We decided in advance what we wanted to spend. Every furniture store told us: for 3-4,000€ you can get an excellent bathroom.

According to the current offer, prices indeed look like they are between 200% and 400% of the online price. No question – a physical store with a showroom and consultation has to and should be more expensive than the online retailer. In all other areas, the difference is between 5 and 25%. That is okay, no problem with that. But to demand three times the price for a shower fitting without the customer receiving any added value that justifies the price difference somehow doesn’t add up. Sure, the craftsman is liable. But I am also liable in the IT sector. And I add only a maximum of 5% on my own capital. The computers don’t get better or different just because I held them in my divine hands.

But well, you can discuss that for a long time now. I definitely find it interesting that the term mafia came up – acquaintances who built houses also once brought that up.

When building our house, such a price difference only occurred with the sanitary supplier – floor, windows, etc. were all within the range of "online price + 10-20% markup." And that is okay. But in my opinion, 200% to 400% is not.