another equally plausible possibility: we were paying $40 though them, but the alternative was $60 at the LHBS - so NCM saw an opportunity to capture part of that difference and jacked up their prices to $50.
now the question is, will the increase in profit per bag be offset by the loss of volume now that people won't be buying as much/as often...
Indeed it looks NCM wants to capture some of the retail profit, without offering retail service. Although we're not sure if truck delivery is totally out of the question, by shifting shipping methods to Fedex (ugh!) the deal gets even less attractive. AFAIK, Fedex does not ship/deliver palleted goods, unless something changed recently.
NCM was selling us at the "2000# wholesale" rate for a private (non-business) account holder.
We don't know, what rate they're selling to LHBS for, and can be much lower than our rate, since they are retail outfits that make profit through markups. Those are called trade discounts, and usually based on volume.
Nobody in those supply chains is losing money with this change, except us, the ultimate consumer.
Does anyone know how LHBSs buy their products? They may get supplies through a distributor (network), and not even deal directly with NCM.
The co-op idea still has merit, but we need to know some more details, like shipping rates for pallet-sized orders, which could be the ultimate deal breaker if they cannot be kept within reason. Don't forget, NCM would not be paying
retail shipping for Fedex either. They have negotiable leverage to receive industrial shipping rates.