MarkBass pricing changes from month to month as MB and, I think, their distributors test the market to see what price things will sell at.
There were some very good offers available to in July and August - some of these were passed on to customers whilst others were held as higher margin (also to offset against unsold stock purchased at higher prices).
There's no obvious differentiation between Italian and Indonesian made stock. In fact a couple of the very best bargain offers recently were on Italian made items. There's a couple particular combos from higher up the MB range that have been available at great prices recently - I know of a couple of BassChatters that have taken advantage of these recently
Thomann play with MB prices all the time. I keep a weekly watch on their prices across a number of key products and it's really interesting, from a retailer perspective, to watch their 'dynamic' pricing policy.
They often take a lead, high selling, item from a manufacturer's range and discount it really heavily as a promotional item which helps to bring in new customers and can push people towards other, potentially higher margin, items as well.
Euro to £ (and $) does have a significant effect. This is really helping on import pricing at the moment (although it's screwing exports so not always great for the market as a whole).