Question regarding these Hoya CP Filter

[USER876]

Are these the same? Why the price difference?


BH PHOTO $211
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/391185-REG/Hoya_030160_77mm_Circular_Polarizing_Pro.html#spec ifications


HVSTAR $77
http://hvstar.net/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=9

[lukasgunar]

Well I'm tempted to say YES, those are the same filters.
And why such difference in price? Here's my explanation. Some might like it and some not.
A friend of mine works in the sport's shop. They're selling pretty much everything related to any kind of sport in the shop (same like B&H in terms of photography and all the stuff they're selling). They're selling bikes with almost 0 margin as competition in this segment is really tight and the price of bikes is rather higher comparing to other items they're selling. So again when we go to B&H case bike would be here an SLR camera. And here comes the point. They're also selling function textile (I hope this term is used in English as well. Just to explain, it's very popular nowadays. It's made of artificial fiber and you can buy long sleeves shirts, short sleeves shirts, underwear etc. made of it. It's very light and it doesn't keep you wet as it takes the moisture out from your body and it dries very fast). So basically this is rather cheap item when you compare price of the T-shirt made of this material to bike but they make HUGE margin on it (sometimes 200-300%). So I would say that this textile could be compared to filters and accessories sold by B&H. There's not huge competition in this article and because many people come to B&H to buy camera because of their brand, many of those people buy filters and many different accessories along with cameras.
I would like to stress here once again, this is purely my opinion so I don't force anybody to believe it.

[USER876]

I know all about multi level marketing, resales in different markets and private labeling, but even on amazon the filter is 150ish.

[argyle]

Profit margins on cameras for brick-and-mortar dealers aren't very large, which is why they need a high sales volume to turn a decent profit...these same dealers make their largest margins on accessories such as filters, etc. Why do you think the dealers always try to push "protection" filters onto their customers with every lens purchase? You would too if you were able to pull in a 200% or higher margin.