Someone mentioned the cost of the item, and the cost of any labor that a dealer might charge to install it. Let's expand on that.
The cost of the part, first.
It is made overseas. Let's say the part is $100 retail. Overseas supplier builds it for $10. They sell it for $20. Then it has to be shipped across the pond. Add $15 ($45). It gets to a terminal, then an unload fee is charged (now $50). Tariff. $10 ($60). Now there is a middleman, who sells it to Kubota. Let's say $25 added ($85). Kubota sells it to the dealer for $90. Dealer sells it to customer for $100, makes ten bucks. Some parts are more, some less. Why's the dealer gonna rip your head off? Because the dealer has bills. They have to pay a parts guy to sell it. They have to pay for a computer place to maintain the business systems. They pay shipping & handling charges, taxes, fees, insurance, utilities, and a whole lot of other things. In the end, the dealer might make 10% after all the bills are paid.
How about shop labor? $100 an hour is our example; and that's cheap now. Immediately, $25 off the top for paying the tech's $25/hr. That doesn't account for any commissions, which may be 4-15% per labor hour depending on the shop. Pay a service manager. Another $20. Now we're up to $45. Insurance. Taxes. Government fees. Utilities. We're up to $90 now. Special tools. We're now at $100. The shop makes little after ALL the bills are paid, many of them are reliant on the sales department to keep the business afloat. Not all, though. That's exactly why they are trying to upsell you. During installation of the $100 timer relay, they notice that you have some oil around the oil filter. They're going to recommend an oil filter change and possibly the oil too. Or they might see that your front hubs are showing sign of leakage. They'll recommend replacement of those too. Some customers are gonna say "oh BS they weren't leaking when I bought it in", and to that you can't change anyone's mind, all you can do is point it out and let their front end run out of oil and fix it later, for a whole lot more money. Dealer service departments often get a bad reputation over this kind of thing but in my case, it's just something I do, to HELP the owner. That is ALL I want to do, is help people, I'm not out to take their money, if I didn't have bills, I'd do it for free. But I have bills just like everyone else does, thus I must charge a little for my services to help pay them. And the higher MY bills go, the more I have to charge to stay on this side of the dirt. That is exactly why things cost as much as they do, and for the life of me I can't grasp why others refuse to understand that.