With regard to posting #7, what I posted was correct. There are many low value automotive servicing items such as filters which as stand alone items are not commercially viable to sell whether online or in bricks and mortar operations. Once all the costs associated with procuring, holding, selling and accounting for these items are taken into account, they are sold at a loss. As post #8 says, customers need these items as part of regular routine servicing so they continue to be sold in the hope that once in the shops (physical or online) customers will also buy some higher value items at the same time. Those operations which sell very high volumes of these low value items should be able to negotiate better cost prices with their suppliers for bulk purchases of supplies but the financial benefits achievable are obviously limited due to the low starting cost prices anyway.

I am a qualified accountant and have held positions such as Finance Manager and Financial Controller in well known organisations so am well used to understanding how the numbers stack up in a business.

A lot of businesses are not very good at understanding their costs and there will be some automotive parts retailers who have never really thought about what I have said.