Price variations

[Riven]

The other day whilst browsing around the local Decathlon store my eye was caught by a shiny new screwgate carabiner for £4.99. Now I have still got one that I bought over 30 years ago for caving which cost then more than that.
Now I bought a Fallkniven F1 ten years ago for £60 and today they are around double that.
So my question is, why are some things much more expensive today than others? Is it just cashing in.
lets be honest alot of effort goes into making a knife but so does a carabiner designed to save a life.
And the carabiner was very, very shiny....

 

[daveO]

If it got cheaper then the company probably moved production to another part of the world where labour is cheap or they streamlined their production somehow. If it got more expensive then it is probably still made in the original country (is Fallkniven still made in Japan?) and inflation plus VAT increases will have a lot to do with it.

Companies like Fallkniven can trade on their reputation to a degree and have to keep prices high to appear like a premium product. Other companies have to compete in a crowded market place and on-line sales and cheap products from China are really driving down prices (and quality in many cases). Rare companies like Mora seem to defy all patterns by staying cheap and keeping quality standards at the expected level.

 

[sunndog]

My carabiners cost more than £4.99......and i'm quite glad they do lol

 

[daveO]

Also you have to remember that a lot of people only ever buy stuff on sale these days so everything is usually 10-20% overpriced the rest of the time to make it looks like a bargain on sale. Has anyone ever bought a sofa at DFS at full price during the one week of the year when they're not having a sale?

 

[Janne]

Your old expendive was made in Europe or north Americs.
The same brand you can buy cheaply today is made in Asia.

I would not expect the quality to be the same.

 

[Old Bones]

The quality might be similar - the Chinese will make what you want, at the quality that you want. You just need to pay for it.

Most big brands will source from China or the Far East, and Chinese brands like Firemaple and Fenix have good reputations. Its as much in the quality control as anything. Thats why I'm more likely to buy Rab or Alpkit than something off Alibaba. Its might be the same, it might be much cheaper, but I trust those companies to check for me that its decent. Yes, there is a price to be paid for that, but who needs to spend good money on a bag filled with chicken feathers? You tend to get what you pay for.

Some of those price reductions will also come from the economies of scale that come from sourcing in one place but selling worldwide. And the internet has been very powerful at flattening prices. You can segment the market, but you cant simply buy product A and double or triple your markup if Company B is selling exactly the same thing, but with their name on it. People will tend to notice now.

Prices have fallen in real terms for lost of items, not just hiking gear, although the fact that the market price for a 4 season Snugpak sleeping bag is the same in sterling terms as it was in about 1994 is pretty interesting!

I can remember selling 32in Samsung TV's ten years ago with Freeview for about £450 - and that was a good price. Now, you can but a 49in 4K Samsung with Freeview HD, smart etc for £519 - its economies of scale and the power of the market. And my father still remembers exactly how much he paid for the first family VHS recorder in about 1983 - you can now get a PVR for about a third of the sterling price, and in real terms, even less than that.

Carabiners are lovely and shiny - but you can get Grivel ones for £7.65 from Go Outdoors - and their 'North Ridge' own brand is strangely the same price - since they are actually ....Grivel.

 

[Old Bones]

I just realised that I undermined my own argument by citing Go Outdoors using Grivel under their own brand!

Actually, its not uncommon for brands to have much the same thing at different prices, with different branding and names. Fire maple is at all sorts of prices, depending on whose selling it, for instance, and you could have the perfectly valid example of VW/SEAT/Skoda, etc.

But all in all, its still generally cheaper than it was 30 years ago.

 

[Janne]

I am yet to find one Chinese made product with an ‘oldfashioned ‘ quality.

 

[snappingturtle]

Tooling and the price to make such things would of changed is something to account for, I worked in a press shop and the tools are mega money, but things move on and I would think the price has come down due to tech, I mean you can program a multi axis and headed cutter to cut amazing shapes and so much faster too.

 

[Broch]

I am yet to find one Chinese made product with an ‘oldfashioned ‘ quality.

You really have something against Chinese supply don't you Janne

I have had a number of items (for both business and personal use) from China that I have been more than pleased with. The 8.5Kw inverter that I had shipped was excellent, better made than the British manufacturers were offering, more features, and at a better price after shipping! Yes, you have to be careful about the company you're dealing with but the level of service from the good ones is second to none - and I really mean that.

Out of principle I buy British where I can - or at least from a company with a UK based manufacturing plant - but sometimes the quality lets UK manufacturers down.

 

[Fadcode]

The other day whilst browsing around the local Decathlon store my eye was caught by a shiny new screwgate carabiner for £4.99. Now I have still got one that I bought over 30 years ago for caving which cost then more than that.
Now I bought a Fallkniven F1 ten years ago for £60 and today they are around double that.
So my question is, why are some things much more expensive today than others? Is it just cashing in.
lets be honest alot of effort goes into making a knife but so does a carabiner designed to save a life.
And the carabiner was very, very shiny....

Most things are priced at a level people will pay, if they are priced too high they wont sell, it also depends a lot on the competition, competition is good for the consumer but not for the company, this is why a lot of big name shops are in trouble they cannot compete with the sellers on the internet, especially those with little or no overheads, they also find it hard to compete with the big supermarkets like ASDA especially with the cheap clothes they sell,now it looks good for the consumer as prices fall etc, but if we remember the competition that was forced onto the electricity and gas markets by the Government in an effort to keep prices down, eventually the companies were bought up by the biggest and basically we ended up with the same cartel like before, look at the price of petrol fill up at the local supermarket and you get a good deal, fill up on a motorway and you pay almost £1 more per gallon.
Regarding the quality of the so called cheap goods coming in from China and other cheap labour countries, well virtually everything you buy seems to have a label saying it was made in one of these countries, so you have little choice in where it was made, if you look at machinery Pillar Drills for instance you will see the exact same machine, bearing well known names at vastly different prices, are they simply coining it in? ......in my opinion Yes they are,
Nowadays its "Pay your money and take your chance" quality in most things is no longer guaranteed, goods are made to a price not to a standard.

 

[daveO]

look at machinery Pillar Drills for instance you will see the exact same machine, bearing well known names at vastly different prices, are they simply coining it in? ......in my opinion Yes they are,

Customer service counts for a lot though. I've always found Clarke aftersales to be really good and they keep parts to repair things and offer advice if things go wrong out of warrantee. If they charge a bit than for the same non-branded product that doesn't come with the customer service then you can understand it. Not always true though.

 

[Alan De Enfield]

Customer service counts for a lot though...............

And I think an indicator of good customer service is the acceptance of a problem, and the effort spent 'putting it right'..
Last week I purchased a Chinese copy of the MSR Hubba Hubba NX2 tent at a price of £74.99 delivered, compared to the MSR price anywhere between £300 & £400.
Tent was received next day.
The quality was excellent, stitching, double taped, reinforced corners, zips etc but there was a problem that one of the 'nipples' at the end of one of the poles would not fit into the grommet. Five fitted perfectly but one was too large.
I sent an email to the supplier attaching a photo of the 'nipple'.
Received an email back that they would send a replacement part. (I had found the 'nipples' on ebay at £2.50 for Qty 5, so wasn't over fussed if I received the replacement part or not)
Next day received a package which appeared to be rather large - opened package and it contained a complete tent (Poles, pegs, guys, flysheet, tent)

Emailed them asking if they wanted the 'old' tent returning, they so no, keep it and apologised for the inconvenience.
Ordered a pack of nipples off ebay.

THAT IS GOOD CUSTOMER SERVICE

 

[Nice65]

Customer service counts for a lot though. I've always found Clarke aftersales to be really good

I can't rate Whitby high enough for replacing Leatherman parts, they're a truly exceptional company.