Hi RJM
Some interesting points in your post. Your remark about retail price of Euro-alphas being 4xproduction cost appears to be a sort of criticism. But perhaps this sort of mark-up also applies to non-alphas, they just start from a lower production cost maybe.
A four-times mark up sounds a lot but its not really:
The factory needs a good profit to pay for R & D, replace old machinery, fund new manufacturing techniques, pay for environmental policies.
The importer / local subsidiary needs a profit.
The retailer needs a profit.
And binoculars rarely get sold at full retail list price anyway.
On top of this some brands can charge a brand premium. Whether you go along with this depends on your disposable income and your spending priorities.
As it happens I drive a Skoda car, which as any European driver will tell you is not very high up the car Food-Chain LOL. On the other hand I choose Zeiss bins and Troubadoris is a Leica girl.
Lee
Now the thread is becoming interesting. And much more interesting that for a change it is not a poor, porro owning journalist with tendonitis fingers broaching the subject of alpha costs, but rather a presumably well-to-do Japanese investment banker who owns two Kowa scopes and a dude ranch in Texas.
Only a dealer like Jan could tell us the mark up on alphas, and he wouldn't dare! But when you see demo 8x32 FLs going for $750 at Cameraland and Nikon 8x32 EDG I's selling for $999 with a free camera worth $500 at EO, and Fuji 12x60 HBs for $269, it does make me wonder.
Here's my experience with wholesale/retail, which will hopefully shed some light. After I finally got my BA (I know, it should have been a BS), the next month, the Gulf War began. The university where I expected to get a job wasn't hiring and neither was any other company in the area since the war had caused a "communicative panic," as my old prof called it, as uncertainly always does, as the fiscal cliff is now causing, so the only job I could get was selling $1,500 HEPA filter vacuum cleaners called Filter Queens.
I initially received 10% on each sale and there was plenty of wiggle room on the selling price, but the lower the price, the smaller your take, so naturally the sales people tried to bilk the customers for as much as they could.
After I sold 10 Filter Queens, I got a Top Dealer award, which still sits proudly on my mantle shelf (or where my mantle shelf would be if I could afford a fireplace) and my take went up to 20%.
I found out from the dealer one day when he was drunk (which was quite often) that his cost from the distributor in Altoona was $600. So here he was selling a vacuum cleaner for $1,500 that cost $600. Then he'd pay me 10% of sale price, which came to a measly $150 (I had to eat the gas and use my own car, and they send me as far as east as Lewistown - could have visited Proud Papa - and as far north as Rebamcentiresville so I can't even imagine what my take home was).
Now he did rent a large studio room off North Atherton (the main business "drag" on the north end of town, which is now the "boom" area where I live). So that must have cost a pretty penny. Eventually he got behind in the rent and I saw his phone bill - for the telemarketers to call and set up the appointments for us - and that was $3,000, though I don't know how many months the bill was for. He had overhead, a drinking problem, and a mistress, so there probably wasn't much leftover for his wife and daughter.
We eventually started working out of one guy's truck (who's infant daughter was later adopted by a friend of mine when his wife took off), and we started making "cold calls," selling door to door.
The poor folks always invited me, even fed me, but the rich folks, as soon as they got their free knife set, kicked me out, something literally, one old couple threw the vacuum claener out the door and threw the hose at me.
The telemarketers said the "presentation" would only take 15 minutes, but it was open ended, you keep selling them on the merits of the Filter Queen against whatever they had until they either fall asleep and you give them a post-hypnotic suggestion to sign on the dotted line - that worked twice, I kid you not, once with a trucker and once with a retiree - or you find something of value they have to trade in to lower their cost. One family traded in an old car and got $200 off the price of the vacuum cleaner. Old vacuum cleaners, lawn mowers, TV sets, you name it, I took it.
Before they call me Rambling Brock Eliot, I will come to my point, and that is, never buy at the retail price. Always dicker. If an item ain't selling, it's better for a store to sell at less profit than to let it sit. If they are flying off the shelves like hotcakes, the item is probably already reduced as much as it's going to get.
Hope that helps.
<B>
Plus, it did cross my mind that the Zeiss would have higher resale value ...things to consider there if for some reason I needed to sell it down the road (not planning for that though). I don't want to drive myself nuts with this purchase however and I'm getting there haha...just want to buy one already. They just told me there is a $100 rebate on the zeiss so that's got me thinking...arrrgh...I hate these types of decisions 
