Posted by: AndrewMajor
Yeah, not so much interested in what they cost as much as in what they cost to make. In the context of margins and what’s a good value.
Going back to Kitsbow shorts that, despite the work that goes into making them in the USA, many folks would call not just expensive but “too expensive.”
When those same people would drop the same or more money on say a pair of Oakley glasses where Luxottica is making massive margins.
For example, improved optics noted, how much more do the Oakley’s cost to make than basic Ryders?
What's a good value doesn't [necessarily] matter with respect to what the product costs to make. If someone comes up with a way to make a pair of equivalent to Kitsbow shorts for $50 then sells them for $100 and Kitsbow decides to make their own fabric in house in some esoteric artisanal process that costs $1000 and then sells them at a loss for $800....that doesn't make the non-Kitsbow option a terrible deal or the Kistbow ultra option an amazing deal at $200 less than actual costs to make!!!!!
I think it's 100% fair to factor in other considerations into the process of determining what is a good value [supporting local businesses/workers, environmental considerations, etc...], but primarily for the consumer what matters is what the product or service does for them.
Do I care if Oakley makes twice the margin on a pair of sunglasses vs. Ryder? Nope. I care how they perform and their longevity vs. the cost. I don't feel like Oakley owes it to me to have low margins. OTOH if Oakley costs doubled because they wanted even bigger margins I couldn't swallow that value proposition.
My go to MTB shorts are RF Stage shorts [thank the Bike Gods for long inseams...at least in the previous version]. They go for $68USD. The Kitsbow Mescal [comparable product] is $199USD. So that's about 3 times more expensive to buy. Let's just assume the Kitsbow fit me as well as the RF shorts did. Would I spend 3 times as much for the additional things that Kitsbow brings to the table? No. I wouldn't heckle Kitsbow for their prices either. I get that making stuff domestically costs more and I see the value in that approach...not 3 times the cost in value though. Would I spend an extra 30% over the RF product? Yes. An extra 50%? Yes. Somewhere between 50%-100% more I lose my enthusiasm though.
OTOH back when GG first came out with their carbon bikes they delivered a high quality domestically made product with a impressive feature list and performance profile at a cost lower than their competitors and they made money on each bike so they could reinvest into the business and grow their operation. Now that was a compelling domestic manufacturing story. But again I largely don't care what their margins were when deciding if it was good value aside from wanting them to stay in business. If they did all sorts of great domestic manufacturing stuff with their bikes, but the frames were 3 times what an Asian made carbon frame cost with low margins I wouldn't be interested.