“The price of copper has collapsed. Hope you didn’t buy too much at those high prices.”
Yes it has. But what the poster states is not surprising. All metals have crashed; yet I am paying the same high prices for metal t-posts for my farm. And before I hear “yeah - because your are buying old stock that was when metal was high” - I say BS. The same BS was pedaled about oil prices too.
Actually, some of this pipe (especially the 3/4" which is not popularly used) was probably in stock before the prices ran up, judging from the looks of it.
Anyway, it seems to be the nature of retail - prices can climb quickly in reaction to cost, but they are much slower to decline when costs fall. It is somewhat dependent on demand and competitive forces. Gasoline is the obvious example here, and that is a competitive market with fairly inelastic demand, even if there are only few major players.
I wouldn't expect that copper pipe would drop even as fast as gas has (and that has been deemed slow compared to the price drop in crude oil) since Home Depot, Lowe's, and Ace Hardware don't post their competitive pipe prices out on a sign in front of the store. And really, people don't go from store to store checking prices on this type of thing if they're only going to buy 30 or 40 feet of pipe for a home plumbing project. Even at the high material prices, it's still a lot cheaper sweating your own pipe instead of hiring a plumber.