Price range for basic products

[lpm]

To a certain extent, I think that it is people believing that by paying more, they get higher quality: as the Stella advert used to say: "Reassuringly Expensive". If you want to believe you've 'made it', you are prepared to pay more for the illusion of higher 'quality'. So instead of a plain cardboard box with monochrome printing, you get an artfully folded box printed in 4-colour printing with a transparent window showing the product.

It coincides with people being divorced from actual quality.

There's also a bit of the exponential/power law ride in cost for linear increments in quality - thankfully I take the view that the extra you pay for very good wine is not worth it when there is oodles of not bad wine available in boxes at sensible prices. As the price rises, you have to be a serious connoisseur to notice the improvement. It is an expensive habit I have managed to avoid acquiring.

I've notice the same thing with Duty-Free. No longer can I get plain 10-year-old Laphroaig: it's all been brand extended to the utmost, with corresponding breathtaking increases in prices. I don't play that game.

As for basic products, like toothpaste: supermarket own brands are 25-30p per tube. Ibuprofen just over 2p per tablet - all carefully placed on the bottom shelf, below where people look the most for things (product positioning on supermarket shelves is big business). I don't know how much the branded equivalents are, as I don't buy them.

One thing that may have influenced things is the move of the price label from the product to the shelf. You don't notice changes so much - in the past, you would notice if a tin of beans has increased in price when you put the new tin next to the old in the cupboard. Almost no-one checks the till receipt, if they bother to take it at all.

Sorry, I'm rambling. The defendant is obviously guilty because Chewbacca!

So is CAPITALISM exploiting us? It knows we are irrational animals and so optimises its behaviour to divorce price from quality, while simultaneously working hard to convince us that price = quality.

How do we fight back, as a society? My concern is: none of us are as rich as we think we are. Collectively we over-spend - we under-save for our pensions, old-age care and the NHS, and also under-invest in education and climate-related infrastructure. The accumulated monthly spend on premium products is a big chunk of this over-spending for many people - and the spend probably gives pretty modest extra quality in return for a great deal of financial insecurity.

If people moan to me about paying £50 extra a month for climate measures, should my response be to tell them to stop squandering money on premium consumption with limited extra satisfaction?

[jimbob]

Salt. Anything from 35p/kg to £10/kg. Any reason?

And honey*. And porridge.

* Can't stand the stuff so don't really care as it happens

Honey very much so - as above, rarity and purity, is it sourced from one location (specific flowers) with low volume, or is it a blend of high volume whatever's around at low staff costs, local or transported? Unsurprising that the cost is different. Whether it justifies all of that cost difference we can't know.

Porridge seems less plausible.

I find quite a difference in taste and texture of cooked porridge. So processing does play a part

[Gfamily]

Our office had a pre-order, pre-packaged lunch stand in the foyer, run by an outfit calling itself 'Bite Club'.
Nobody was talking about it.

It lasted about 2 months
True story

[plodder]

What is this thread about? That items which take longer to make or obtain, are rarer or otherwise better in some way are more expensive?

That just reflects a) the effort that goes into them and b) the difficulty of undercutting the competition (perhaps the brand has a certain cachet, or the recipe is secret).

The alcohol example is interesting, because AFAIK the alcoholic content in, say, WKD or cheap cider comes from the exact same distilleries that produce raw spirit for single malts - they just add a sugary flavouring and top it up with water. However the increased price of the single malt is due to a) and b) above.

[Pucksoppet]

If people moan to me about paying £50 extra a month for climate measures, should my response be to tell them to stop squandering money on premium consumption with limited extra satisfaction?

Probably not, if you want to be effective in catalysing change.

People tend to believe they are 'worth it' and deserve the 'treats' they buy themselves. Short-term wish fulfilment trumps long-term need fulfilment. There is also the 'safety in numbers' aspect: one person burning a lump of coal or not isn't going to make a measurable change to the climate, so why deny yourself the pleasure of keeping warm because some stuck-up intellectual tells them its bad for the planet.

Substitute burning a lump of coal with eating a piece of non-Fairtrade chocolate, or drinking a Nespresso. I 'deserve' to treat myself. A single treat isn't going to make a significant change to my financial situation or kill the planet so...

Changing attitudes is hard, and shouting at people doesn't work very well.

Mind you, I don't know what does work well. Ask some experts in the 'nudge' approach.

[dyqik]

What is this thread about? That items which take longer to make or obtain, are rarer or otherwise better in some way are more expensive?

That just reflects a) the effort that goes into them and b) the difficulty of undercutting the competition (perhaps the brand has a certain cachet, or the recipe is secret).

I think that this thread is mostly about the opposite of this. Products which are pretty much the same, and cost about the same to make, but have very different prices.

The alcohol example is interesting, because AFAIK the alcoholic content in, say, WKD or cheap cider comes from the exact same distilleries that produce raw spirit for single malts - they just add a sugary flavouring and top it up with water. However the increased price of the single malt is due to a) and b) above.

I'm pretty sure that single malt whiskey is from a different grain source than cheap neat alcohol. In particular, whisky doesn't distill to pure alcohol, so some of the grain character carries through (also true for bourbons and ryes), which is something that's completely undesirable for neat alcohol used in WKD etc.

Vodka and gin, otoh, can be made with pretty much any fermentable sugars, and don't involve aging. You also don't see as much variation in price there, although obviously gin varies according to the work that goes into botanical selection etc.

[Grumble]

Gin is basically just flavoured vodka isn’t it?

[dyqik]

Gin is basically just flavoured vodka isn’t it?

Essentially, yes.

[plodder]

yeah, and the infusion process only takes about 24 hours. All the price is in the fancy label and bottle.

[dyqik]

yeah, and the infusion process only takes about 24 hours. All the price is in the fancy label and bottle.

And design time and effort, and actually acquiring the ingredients to be infused, and the time to actually do the infusion, and the time to bottle it.

[plodder]

Yes, but that’s pretty trivial in the great scheme of things. It’s why so many billions of independent gin makers have sprung up, it’s mostly branding.

[JQH]

I happily pay a few pence extra for a jar of Fair Trade coffee, although right-wingers an libertarians tell me I am "distorting the market".

If that distortion results in a better income for the Third World farmer who grew the beans then I'm all for it.

I've never heard an actual Libertarian say that. I do know that it's widely regarded as a silly branding thing by people on the right. It's like a 'tribal marker' for political affiliation.

I've heard people who call themselves libertarian say it.

If it boosts the income of the coffee farmers it's a bit more than "silly branding".

[Martin_B]

Gin is basically just flavoured vodka isn’t it?

Flavoured vodka is flavoured vodka. Gin is special flavoured vodka, where the flavouring includes juniper.

I'm not sure what you'd call a vodka which had juniper as one of the lesser flavourings.

[P.J. Denyer]

yeah, and the infusion process only takes about 24 hours. All the price is in the fancy label and bottle.

Gin can be made by infusing the cold spirit or by adding botanicals during distillation using a Carterhead Still or similar. The former is easier and massively reduces the barriers to entry for gin makers, the latter is quicker (and the people who use it would insist, better).

[science_fox]

My understanding of gin is that a lot of the new companies are buying in a 'raw' spirit and flavouring it, rather than doing the distillation themselves.

What is this thread about? That items which take longer to make or obtain, are rarer or otherwise better in some way are more expensive?

That just reflects a) the effort that goes into them and b) the difficulty of undercutting the competition (perhaps the brand has a certain cachet, or the recipe is secret).

Rather it's how do we the consumer know which products have actually taken longer to make/rarer/pay full wages etc, vs those which are just labelled to try and reflect that image and charge the same, but are made from cheaper/easier/low pay methods??
- my answer research I linked to ethical consumer above which is a place to start, but would welcome more comprehensive sources.

With a slight subset of is it worth paying more for a genuinely 'better' product vs the cheap alternative?

Yes - Your Millage May Vary.

Also - are cheap alternatives actually cheaper or are they just cheating somehow (eg not paying proper wages, dumping all their waste abroad without cost etc), and how much should we as a consumer support those practises whilst still being able to afford products we want.

Finally:
Flying and Flybe - which may be worth a thread in it's own, but fits in here very neatly. They had 8million customers and couldn't make a profit because they were only charging £40 a flight. There's a reason travelling by train, and by even car, costs more! Yet apparently customers don't want to pay more.

[plodder]

It's all red in tooth and claw. The great thing about capitalism (there are some great things) is that these weaknesses are exploited ruthlessly. The only way that companies can get away with bullshitting customers is if they can somehow prevent their competitors from undercutting them, e.g. monopolistic behaviour - and we break up monopolies for this reason.

The awful thing about capitalism (there are some awful things) is that companies apply exactly the same aggressive approach to people, the environment etc - we have laws to prevent this.

The difficulties come because the competition between companies (driven by ourselves as customers) leads to an arms race - so Microsoft stay just the right side of the monopolies regulators (e.g. they are suffocating Slack slowly with Teams). There's also an arms race with regulators who constantly have to play catch up as companies exploit weaknesses caused by things like international legal boundaries, loopholes etc.

Then we have the side effects - underfunded regulators creating bad laws, almost inevitably, leading to calls for burdensome red tape to be demolished. Unions supporting politicians who only care about the workers, not the companies that employ them. This kind of thing.

You raise some interesting questions but unless they're framed in this context things like "ethics" get completely swamped and washed aside.

[noggins]

If we need to reduce resource usage, isnt flim-flam spending good?

Isnt It enviromentally better to spend £50 on something thats 50% empty b.llsh.t, than buy 2 x £25 bargains?

[lpm]

The only way that companies can get away with bullshitting customers is if they can somehow prevent their competitors from undercutting them, e.g. monopolistic behaviour - and we break up monopolies for this reason.

This isn't what happens and why this thread exists. Undercutting on price is not where the vulnerability is. Companies instead spin-off additional choices in additional price niches, signalling different forms of premium quality with different symbols. Any differences in actual quality are hard to determine and might or might not exist - the companies do not need them to exist, they just need them to be perceived to exist.

[lpm]

If we need to reduce resource usage, isnt flim-flam spending good?

Isnt It enviromentally better to spend £50 on something thats 50% empty b.llsh.t, than buy 2 x £25 bargains?

Not if I want to tax people £50 to pay for fast action on emissions and want people to save £50 to pay for their old age in an age of climate chaos.

We need to devote our society's resources to some very important needs, instead of devoting resources to empty b.llsh.t.

[lpm]

If people moan to me about paying £50 extra a month for climate measures, should my response be to tell them to stop squandering money on premium consumption with limited extra satisfaction?

Probably not, if you want to be effective in catalysing change.

People tend to believe they are 'worth it' and deserve the 'treats' they buy themselves. Short-term wish fulfilment trumps long-term need fulfilment. There is also the 'safety in numbers' aspect: one person burning a lump of coal or not isn't going to make a measurable change to the climate, so why deny yourself the pleasure of keeping warm because some stuck-up intellectual tells them its bad for the planet.

Substitute burning a lump of coal with eating a piece of non-Fairtrade chocolate, or drinking a Nespresso. I 'deserve' to treat myself. A single treat isn't going to make a significant change to my financial situation or kill the planet so...

Changing attitudes is hard, and shouting at people doesn't work very well.

Mind you, I don't know what does work well. Ask some experts in the 'nudge' approach.

I'm not sure where the sense of "treat yourself" comes from. Our peasant ancestors would presumably treat themselves to a good old piss up every few weeks, at a wedding or religious festival or special market day. But are we now in an age of people going for treats several times a day?

Why? Are our lives so miserable and pointless that we continually need these short term wish fulfillments? Do we feel worthless and want to pretend to be "worth it" via consumption? In particular, do people get locked in a cycle of feeling financially insecure or a loser in our income inequality world, so boost their esteem with a single treat again and again, spending so much on the premiums charged that it then makes them feel financially struggling...

I'm reminded of somebody on another forum, who justified his purchases of cocktails and iPads on the grounds that he'd never be able to buy a home, so this was his compensation.

[shpalman]

The task and the skill is to judge when you are getting a quality item with quality components, but not paying the markup for a posher brand name.

Casio make a more accurate and possibly more robust watch for £10 than Rolex can make for £10,000

Since we talked a bit about gin being made by startups who buy cheap raw spirit and flavour it themselves, we can also talk about those "our story / we cut out the middle man" drop-shipping watch brands you see on Instagram. Even a cheap Japanese quartz movement, let alone a Chinese one, just costs a few quid if you buy one as a normal person; in bulk they must cost them next to nothing. It's all markup, you can get much better value with Casio (even an analog one) or Timex or Citizen or whatever. Or you can buy direct from Alibaba yourself. Anyone who cares can look at some videos from Ben's Watch Club channel. tl;dr some of these "fashion watch" brands were started by people who know nothing about watches but know an awful lot about marketing and have made a f.cking f.ck load of money reaching people who wouldn't otherwise care about watches.

Meanwhile, Rolex are interesting since they deliberately limit themselves to 800,000 watches per year and there can be a two year waiting list for some models. But then they aren't bluffing, since they build everything in-house right from the metal and do very extensive testing and setup on every watch before sending it out. Still it's nowhere near as accurate as a cheap quartz one of course, but watch enthusiasts tend to like the idea of mechanical watches and anyway there's already a thread for this.

[plodder]

The only way that companies can get away with bullshitting customers is if they can somehow prevent their competitors from undercutting them, e.g. monopolistic behaviour - and we break up monopolies for this reason.

This isn't what happens and why this thread exists. Undercutting on price is not where the vulnerability is. Companies instead spin-off additional choices in additional price niches, signalling different forms of premium quality with different symbols. Any differences in actual quality are hard to determine and might or might not exist - the companies do not need them to exist, they just need them to be perceived to exist.

There's a time lag. But sooner or later these niches get exploited and that's why products change and improve and get cheaper over time. Of course, this means new niches get discovered.

[lpm]

The evidence is against you.

The iPhone was expensive at launch, at $500. Cheaper versions then became available, and Samsung etc jumped into the market with even cheaper android alternatives. Apple then steadily marched the price upwards, and so did Samsung. Even with more competition, Apple took the price to $750 then $1,000 and now up to $1,450.

This is part of the reason why the "normal" mid-range is struggling, while the discount and premium sectors are growing. There are choices where products get cheaper over time, there are also choices where products get more expensive, with details or symbols or add-ons being used as an excuse for the premium price.

[plodder]

What you're saying is that the iPhone was forced to improve over time, and that new niches (superb cameras, extraordinary battery life) were developed. Which precisely agrees with me.

[noggins]

If we need to reduce resource usage, isnt flim-flam spending good?

Isnt It enviromentally better to spend £50 on something thats 50% empty b.llsh.t, than buy 2 x £25 bargains?

Not if I want to tax people £50 to pay for fast action on emissions and want people to save £50 to pay for their old age in an age of climate chaos.

We need to devote our society's resources to some very important needs, instead of devoting resources to empty b.llsh.t.

But the flimflam seller now has the £50, cant you just get it off them instead?