Quoted from oldschoolbob:That tube contained ONE rectifier! How can they stay in business doing this?
I actually worked for Arrow Electronics back in the day and will likely be put on their hit list for saying this but it is called MARK UP.
Their e-commerce division was just being developed at the time and was targeting Digi-Key most obviously. I can't recall exactly what we used to mark up but it was on magnitudes of hundreds of %. That was BEFORE many brands began to manufacture "off shore".
Useless trivia... their buildings are all single story (well at the time I worked there they were) there was a tragic fire early in their history in a high rise and many executive perished. After that they made an edict they would only occupy low rise buildings!