Price range for basic products

[science_fox]

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.

This is more than "a few pence extra" though. It's not paying 3p per tea bag instead of 2p. There are teas in the supermarket where people are paying 20p or 30p.

Ostentatious displays of status symbols accounts for people paying premium prices for cars, clothes and smartphones. But does anyone buy Teapigs tea bags for display reasons? Keep them in the cupboard and dig them out when the neighbour pops round, like our grandparents did with the best china? While casually leaving the top brand dishwasher tablets visible?

The vastly higher costs can not be coming anywhere near reflecting higher environmental or ethical standards.

For Teapig? Maybe not. For some small estate loose leaf tea hand harvested and sold without the benefits of economies of scale, maybe so. I would ask for data to support your assertion, but I doubt either of us has the time or resources or contacts to actually get hold of industrially secretive accounts. This is part of the problem, we just don't and can't know. The invisible hand is assumed to work with perfect knowledge. We as customers are being, in part deliberately, prevented from making those kinds of choices.

[dyqik]

A quick look in Target between by train arriving and my physio appointment shows US prices in a national store that isn't a full supermarket but that sells groceries on maybe a quarter of its floor area:
Tea bags: between $2.50 and $35 for 100 bags, store-brand Lipton equivalent to Twinings English Breakfast.

Ground Coffee: $3.50/lb to $18/lb, store brand to Starbucks. $36/lb in Keurig cups.

Turkey slices: $5/lb to $14/lb, store brand to pseudo-organic.
Same upper limit for ham, but starts at $6.50/lb

Sliced bread from $2/lb to $3.50/lb

[discovolante]

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.

This is more than "a few pence extra" though. It's not paying 3p per tea bag instead of 2p. There are teas in the supermarket where people are paying 20p or 30p.

Ostentatious displays of status symbols accounts for people paying premium prices for cars, clothes and smartphones. But does anyone buy Teapigs tea bags for display reasons? Keep them in the cupboard and dig them out when the neighbour pops round, like our grandparents did with the best china? While casually leaving the top brand dishwasher tablets visible?

The vastly higher costs can not be coming anywhere near reflecting higher environmental or ethical standards.

Teapig is still a relatively 'novel' brand compared to other brands which claim quality e.g. Twinings, and the teabags look a bit different. I think they are bigger with more space for the leaves to swoosh around. So perhaps people with enough disposable income to not really notice how much more expensive they are are in part attracted to the idea that a relatively new 'quality' brand must bring something additional that other premium brands don't have. Because every new product is an improvement on the old.

[dyqik]

A quick look in Target between by train arriving and my physio appointment shows US prices in a national store that isn't a full supermarket but that sells groceries on maybe a quarter of its floor area:
Tea bags: between $2.50 and $35 for 100 bags, store-brand Lipton equivalent to Twinings English Breakfast.

Ground Coffee: $3.50/lb to $18/lb, store brand to Starbucks. $36/lb in Keurig cups.

Turkey slices: $5/lb to $14/lb, store brand to pseudo-organic.
Same upper limit for ham, but starts at $6.50/lb

Sliced bread from $2/lb to $3.50/lb

Btw, Target doesn't sell the local "artisan"/"specialist" brands, which is why I went there rather than the supermarket. But the artisan brands are generally within the national brand price range - locally roasted single farm fair trade coffee starts at about the 2/3 price of Starbucks branded bags, and runs up to maybe 50% more.

[FlammableFlower]

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.

This is more than "a few pence extra" though. It's not paying 3p per tea bag instead of 2p. There are teas in the supermarket where people are paying 20p or 30p.

Ostentatious displays of status symbols accounts for people paying premium prices for cars, clothes and smartphones. But does anyone buy Teapigs tea bags for display reasons? Keep them in the cupboard and dig them out when the neighbour pops round, like our grandparents did with the best china? While casually leaving the top brand dishwasher tablets visible?

The vastly higher costs can not be coming anywhere near reflecting higher environmental or ethical standards.

It's multiple effects. One is people (however immune they think they are) buying into the advertising - the arms race on "number of things your dishwasher tablets can do" being an example. First they were "3 in 1", then 4, then 8 and now upwards of "13 in 1". Do they do their job better than the bog-standard cheepo product - actually often yes, they do. But is that improvement actually worth the price hike? Often not really, but you've bought into it... Are you the sort of person who doesn't care...? surely not, so buy the good stuff...

Additionally, with your example of tea, you're also buying into an image - it doesn't have to be external (deliberately showing off the box of tea to your guest) but internally, in your mind, you've created an image of what "kind" of person you are. It's a bit like the "Shoe Event Horizon" bit from the original H2G2 radio series: in a thrusting, happy society - where are you looking? Up, at the horizon. in a recession, down at your shoes... Lots of people at some level buy into the marketing either to buy "nice" things to make yourself feel better, or buy "nice" things "'cos that's the kind of person you are".

[Boustrophedon]

Cars. Say Audi/VW/Seat/Skoda, all offer basically the same Golf sized car for hugely differing prices. Peel off the Skoda badge on my car engine it says VW underneath. People pay what they want to pay.

But bear in mind P'Terry's law of buying boots.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet."

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

[sheldrake]

Alcohol. Bargain basement vodka and cider vs fine wines and single malt whiskies.

[Ben B]

Dishwasher tablets 8p, branded 20p, eco-friendly 30p. Next to each other on the same shelf in Tesco. Though maybe the branded gives a slightly stronger placebo effect, no wait, that can't be right.

I wouldn't be so sure about that. There must be many products, wine for example, where more expensive products get more favourable reactions, because the recipient expects it to be better just because it's more expensive.

[Boustrophedon]

Alcohol. Bargain basement vodka and cider vs fine wines and single malt whiskies.

If you are a traditionalist and want actual alcohol for your off you faceness, then as generations of Winos have discovered, nothing beats a bottle of Buckfast for off your faceness per buck (SWIDT)

Other cheaper non alcohol products are available, or so I am informed.

[Ben B]

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".

That's bollocks though, as getting the best price for a product you're selling is just as much a part of the market as getting the best price for a product you're buying.

What they really mean when they say that is that they don't give two shits about the working conditions in developing countries and just want cheap goods whatever the consequences.

[Martin Y]

I am less distressed by the range of price for similar products than by the range for identical items.

Cheap and posh dishwasher tablets both clean your plates but some cloud your glasses faster, abrade the designs off your mugs and leave aluminium items with weird blue-to-magenta discolouration. Sometimes it's worth using a cheapo one to blast tea stains off stuff but typically I use a gentler one.

Waitrose has nice things, but it also has ordinary things, at high prices. I find the pleasure of being able to browse its many treats more than offset by rankling at the price of items I could get in Asda for really quite a lot less (or by being invited to pay double for something that mentions the Prince of Wales).

A friend remarked that Sainsburys exists to keep the riffraff out of Waitrose. I can see his point, as I appear to be one of them.

[sheldrake]

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.

[Boustrophedon]

There's the re-badgers who buy cheap products from Chinese wholesalers, stick a European sounding name on it and sell it at four times the cost. Our Icecream machine can be bought from £100 to over £400 for the same machine but with different names.

Then there's our new German made espresso machine that costs £100 in the UK but sells for £400 in the US. I'm OK with this.

Where I have had failures with the cheap and cheerful approach has always been things with motors, from vacuum cleaners to electric drills and coffee grinders. The bargain basement stuff has always gone bang or caught fire. I just wish Makita did coffee grinders.

Detergent and cleaning products are I suspect price neutral, in that the more expensive ones probably contain more of and better active ingredients in direct proportion to the cost. This is a feeling, I can offer no evidence, perhaps "Which" can help?

Going back 25 years Shell had a new way of obtaining feedstock for lube oils that produced an automotive oil (Helix branded) that was by independent measure twice as good as the competition, it had better EP action and needed less viscosity improving additives, additives that tend to break down in a short time, so it lasted much longer. But Shell couldn't sell it in anything like the volume that the technical advantage should have warranted, til they doubled the price, then it sold better. Duh!

[dyqik]

I am less distressed by the range of price for similar products than by the range for identical items.

Waitrose has nice things, but it also has ordinary things, at high prices. I find the pleasure of being able to browse its many treats more than offset by rankling at the price of items I could get in Asda for really quite a lot less (or by being invited to pay double for something that mentions the Prince of Wales).

A friend remarked that Sainsburys exists to keep the riffraff out of Waitrose. I can see his point, as I appear to be one of them.

This seems to be even more of a thing in the US. But what I find is that some of the cheap supermarkets have more of the stuff that I regard as nice - better cheese, better coffee selection, better "ethnic" aisles, better quality and wider range of fruit and veg.

What they don't have is such extensive displays of 35 kinds of branded ranch dressing, 57 flavors of bad quality hummus, or the full selection is Peet's and Starbucks ground coffee.

[Grumble]

I pay a lot more for coffee than I have to, but I get a much better tasting drink for it. But I don’t see much benefit in going from a £3.50 bag from Cafe Direct to a £4.50 bag from Union or even more for Has Bean etc.

[veravista]

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

[Gentleman Jim]

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

Wooooooooooooooooooooooooo

[Ben B]

I just wish Makita did coffee grinders.

Your wish is my command.

[dyqik]

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

Wooooooooooooooooooooooooo

£10/kg is pretty cheap compared to the $40 for 20 minutes sitting in the Himalayan salt cave in the Salt Crystal shop in our town.

Fancy finishing salts are kind of fun, and do taste a little different. But I'm not sure you couldn't easily fake it with a child's chemistry set or the water adjustment chemicals I keep on hand for brewing.

[science_fox]

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.

[Pucksoppet]

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!

[Martin Y]

… what I find is that some of the cheap supermarkets have more of the stuff that I regard as nice - better cheese, better coffee selection, better "ethnic" aisles, better quality and wider range of fruit and veg.

This is true of the Asda near work which, presumably thanks to a diverse customer base, has several fascinating "ethnic" aisles and notably good variety of fruit and veg. You can't get Shito in the Asda near home. The one at work has it, in two brands.

[dyqik]

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.

Misinterpreting the phrase "made it" there, I was immediately put in mind of the eye-watering price of groceries delivered in boxes with instructions via things like "Blue Apron", or whatever that kind of thing is called in the UK, if it exists. Or of "salad kits", etc.

There are some serious mark ups for convenience - bagged teas (of a given quality) and even more so single serve coffee capsules - are heavily marked up. Dishwasher tablets are more expensive than the same weight of loose powder.

[Boustrophedon]

I just wish Makita did coffee grinders.

Your wish is my command.

Hmm, that is in the same vein as my using the mains electric drill and a large spoon to mix the christmas cake in the days before I had a mixer.

[Martin Y]

… I was immediately put in mind of the eye-watering price of groceries delivered in boxes with instructions via things like "Blue Apron", or whatever that kind of thing is called in the UK, if it exists.

Such things do exist, though I suspect the rate of churn is spectacular. I cannot tell you what names they go by as, although I know I saw a TV ad for one yesterday, the name did not stick. I have an inkling that copycats pop up but then founder in quick enough succession that one never sees a second ad campaign for the same brand.