You are correct Jwood at least to an extent at least but I think there are a few things you are forgetting about, let's follow the progress through it's stages shall we.
1st stage is Research and development, it costs money to have engineers on the payroll to design the stove, sometimes this is an ongoing effort that takes many years, the companies at the top never stop in that effort.
2nd would be in house testing, you can probably imagine how many units end up in the scrap pile just because somebody forgot something or didn't think the design through, engineers are a lot like doctors and lawyers, they may be doing what they do all their life but regardless of how long they have done it they are still just practicing and again just like doctors or lawyers most have very little real world knowledge or common sense.
3rd Marketing, I can tell you first hand that setting up a booth at a county fair to show your product never mind a real trade show that charges a premium for a cramped space is very expensive, for instance, Common Ground fair in Unity, Maine last year cost P+M $1,000 dollars for a 2 day show, TCI in Hartford, Ct. Was I think a bit over $3000 and rarely do we sell enough at the show itself to pay the gate fee, most sales are done at a later date by office staff that by the way has to be paid for.
4th warranty, this is a very important part of doing business as the manufacturer would be a fool if he thought every unit off the line was going to be perfect, there are going to be glitches in the process and money needs to be set aside for those glitches, I think this is where many companies fall short and then fold which now makes it harder again for the good companies to make sales.
5th in the field testing, this is very important and can be expensive for a first run of a new product, keep in mind that where most of the units are made, there is very little hardwood and most companies used softwoods for in the field testing, there are a lot of variables with different species of woods and this is where we find a lot of the issues with a new product line.
6th Manufacturers in the lab testing, you can probably understand that setting up a lab to pre test units headed for the EPAs lab is not cheap in material costs and then add on the cost of the technician that watches the results, not cheap!
7th EPA lab testing, at this point there are only 2 EPA certified labs here in these United States, they kind of have the market cornered and can charge outrageous amounts of money for the testing, pass or fail regardless of whose fault a failure is.
8th Education for the customer, yes an owners manual is sent out with every unit, who reads them, I for one never do until I run in to an issue rather it is a wood boiler or a new chain saw, I think that has a lot to do with our testosterone levels
therefor most good companies will reach out to their customers on a regular basis to check in on their progress, this takes time away from sales in the office and must still be paid for. This site has again done a lot for this industry in this aspect!
9th Dealer markup, yes believe it or not, I don't think there is a single dealer out there that promotes a product without expecting a profit back, most dealers work on a very tight margin of $1000 - $5000 dollars depending on the unit, typically if a dealer offers you a deal that is not sanctioned by the manufacturer, it is coming out of his own profit margin and perhaps he no longer sees a profit so he dumps what he has in stock and gets out. This hurts us all including the customer!
10th and finally is the manufacturers profit, a company / manufacturer would be a fool to not make enough profit on it's product to pay for all of the above and not still have enough left over to put money away for it's next product, I would not want to do business with a company that didn't take all of these factors into consideration, would you?
thank you my friend for the opportunity to explain those things to you so the next person looking for a new unit can take all those factors into consideration before they buy!