Taking the money up front or taking Pre Orders allows the vendor to sell a product and have zero or very little money in the stock.
Let's be generous and say that the CW2PLL will cost Brian Gohl $5.00 a piece if purchased in builk and delivered to a single location on the West Coast. This means that for every lnb that he collects for in advance would allow him to pay for 11 lnbs without having to use any of his own money. If he could collect the money up front for 50 lnbs then he could pay for 550 lnbs without having to use a penny of his own money.
Additional money is collected up front for the CW2PLL because actual shipping cost to the customer is not $15.00! Brian makes a decent profit on the lnb and a small profit the shipping.
This same trick is used for fta receivers.
If you can collect $200.00 a piece for an Amiko A3 up front and you collect for 50 receivers, then you have $10,000.00 of other people's money. If the Amiko A3 cost you $40.00 a piece when delivered to a single location on the West Coast, then you have collected enough money up front to pay for 250 Amiko A3 receivers! So after you ship the first 50 receivers, you have satisfied the initial investment amount of $10,000.00 and the next 200 receivers you ship are pure profit! And you did all of this without using a penny of your own money!
IMO, having the customer pay up front is a dirty deal. The only person that benefits is the dealer and he is laughing at you all the way to the bank!
FTA receivers and lnbs are dirt cheap when purchased in bulk and shipped in bulk. I have looked in depth about purchasing fta products and can assure you the numbers I have used here are realistic numbers for what these fta products actually cost when purchased in bulk.