The "dealer" prices are scandalous, often 100% higher than the Classic Centre.
FWIW,
a) From a technical standpoint, The Classic Center IS a Mercedes Benz dealership.
b) Each dealership sets their own retail pricing. MBUSA has a MSRP for every single part and the dealer may charge that price, more than that price, or less than that price.
c) My "local" Pasadena dealership tended to charge about 30% over MSRP
d) The Classic Center typically discounts MSRP 10% or 15% (don't remember which) for members of MBCA, although I'm not sure that they actually check that.
e) Classic Center (typically) ships by FedEx and doesn't add a premium to that. You pay a fair shipping price.
f) As with any dealership, if you order parts and live in the state of the dealership, you will pay sales tax for that state. So I live in Pasadena and the Classic Center is in California also, so if I buy from the Classic Center I will get a discount off MSRP and pay sales tax (10%) and FedEx shipping.
g) The Classic Center has more old parts in stock, but like any dealership, much of what you order will come from one of several distribution warehouses in the United States. For parts not in the United States, they will come from Germany. You do not pay extra shipping for the part's delivery to the dealership regardless of where it is shipped from.
h) If you google "trademotion mercedes" you will find links to numerous MB Dealerships that sell at discount. South Atlanta, Ft. Lauderdale, ... It may not immediately be obvious to you that the page you land on is in fact a dealership, but it is. THIS IS HOW YOU FIND OUT A PRICE OF A PART. The trademotion software lets you put in a part number (omit the leading "A") and it returns both the MSRP and the "on-line" price. My experience says that MSRP is always identical from various dealer sites. My experience also says that the "on-line" price is different for various sites, ranging from a slight discount to a very significant discount. You can't assume that a single on-line dealer will always be the cheapest. I often use
Discount Mercedes-Benz Parts which is Mercedes-Benz of South Atlanta, although unless you dig a little, you won't see that.
i) Trademotion sites need a part number to be useful. If you don't have a part number then learn about using EPC.
j) Trademotion sites will bring up no prices for certain part numbers that are NLA. Trademotion sites will bring up prices for some items that are NLA also. You don't know for sure if the part is actually available but if you order it then you can call and talk to someone who will let you know. If you don't do that you will get an email in a day or two saying that the part is NLA.
k) My "personal philosophy" regarding utilization of discount parts dealers is that if I need a consult with the classic center to understand something, I'm going to buy the part from them rather than get the free info and then buy elsewhere. If I've done my own homework then I'll buy on-line from someplace cheaper.
That is my information about how to buy OEM parts from a dealer at a reasonable savings. DONE.
Scott