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Awesome post.
If I may, I think I have a 5th thing to add. Customer Service. I think customer service is another thing that gets calculated into cost, that's at least how I look at it when I buy something.
I'll use FT86Speedfactory for example. They generally provide great prices but in some situations it's not the case. At the same time, I'd be content with paying the extra 10% for big ticket items (say headers or an exhaust) from this company because I've dealt with them before (experience/reputation) and I know before when I had a problem, they fixed it at no cost to me. So if I'm spending $50 more for the header from them (made up value, made up item), I can bite the cost if I know that the cheaper vendor is someone I have no experience with and may provide questionable if any customer service should I have an issue with the header, thus leaving me with an awkwardly shaped paper weight and down several hundred dollars.
For this reason, I won't buy from a company that doesn't display their phone number or makes their phones number hard to find on their website. That's a bit sketchy. Sure it's old school to place phone orders but when I need customer service, it's a different story. And that's the other aspect to OP's statement about "labor" being added into the cost. How much time of the vendor's day will they bother "wasting" to address my concerns? Time is money after all....
As I always say when buying anything, sometimes it's cheaper to spend more money.
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