Canada's most dangerous city for cyclists

On Jun 1, 4:40 am, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 1 Jun 2013 00:01:48 -0700 (PDT), Dan O
wrote:



On May 31, 5:04 pm, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 31 May 2013 06:58:15 -0700, sms
wrote:

On 5/30/2013 4:42 PM, John B. wrote:

Not really. I already know a bit about that. Perceived value, for
instance. I participated in a marketing experiment back in the late
1950's where we changed the price of an outboard motor monthly for a
while. We discovered that their selling price was very much a factor
in sales. Which seems simple until you find that maximum sales did not
occur at the lowest sales price but at a higher figure. In fact the
sales figure was a bell curve and sales dropped off at both the low
and the high price.

Pricing is a science and an art. If you have two items in a category,
consumers will tend toward the lower priced item. If you have three or
more items in a category they will tend to the mid-priced item.

You rarely price an item at a percentage over the cost of manufacturing,
it's always what you think the market will bear and what your
competitors are charging.

Having worked for a company that built things, and won contracts by
bidding the lowest price, I've always viewed the merchandise market
with considerable skepticism. We used to spend considerable time
calculating our costs to the nth degree and than adding an arbitrary
profit and contingency cost on top. Merchandise seems to be priced
solely on "what can we sell it for"...

Bingo!

... and I have to feel that the
temptation to cheapen the making phase is a major factor.

A major factor in the overall average lowest common denominator (and
then a huge market *below* that for the price conscious market).

Even at the gorcery store I look for clues that give me an
*impression* of a producer that cares about quality. Where "quality
is job one" is more than a marketing slogan.

I have become rather a fan of being visible on the bike and recently
bought a Cateye Rapid 3 tail light. Cost me something like US$ 25.00
and it is bright. The light I replaced was a made in China 5 LED light
that cost me three bucks, if I remember correctly. Now, the difference
between the two lights seems to be only the brightness and number of
LEDs. the No Name has 5 and the Cateye has 3.

Now, if I went to China and placed an order for, say 10,000 pieces,
what would be the difference in purchase price between the No Name and
the pseudo Cateye? $0.50 each? Maybe less considering that the No Name
has 5 LEDs and the Cateye only 3.

It does makes one wonder whether you really are getting value for
money :-)


Design is part of quality - a big part. Sometimes "craftsmanship"
matters more.

I'm not an industrialist, but ISTM if I hand them a design and order
10,000 units, they're going to have to tool up and create processes
and... by the time they've built ten batches of 10,000 they might be
getting the processes tweaked and the tooling calibrated. Problem is,
process tweaking is almost always about crankign out more units
cheaper and... we're back to the original dilemna.

It gets worse. I am ~genuinely anthropomorphic, and feel like the
crafstman imbues a bit of soul into everything he produces, so... it's
a little crazy.

On Sat, 1 Jun 2013 09:37:21 -0700 (PDT), Dan O
wrote:

On Jun 1, 4:40 am, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 1 Jun 2013 00:01:48 -0700 (PDT), Dan O
wrote:



On May 31, 5:04 pm, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 31 May 2013 06:58:15 -0700, sms
wrote:

On 5/30/2013 4:42 PM, John B. wrote:

Not really. I already know a bit about that. Perceived value, for
instance. I participated in a marketing experiment back in the late
1950's where we changed the price of an outboard motor monthly for a
while. We discovered that their selling price was very much a factor
in sales. Which seems simple until you find that maximum sales did not
occur at the lowest sales price but at a higher figure. In fact the
sales figure was a bell curve and sales dropped off at both the low
and the high price.

Pricing is a science and an art. If you have two items in a category,
consumers will tend toward the lower priced item. If you have three or
more items in a category they will tend to the mid-priced item.

You rarely price an item at a percentage over the cost of manufacturing,
it's always what you think the market will bear and what your
competitors are charging.

Having worked for a company that built things, and won contracts by
bidding the lowest price, I've always viewed the merchandise market
with considerable skepticism. We used to spend considerable time
calculating our costs to the nth degree and than adding an arbitrary
profit and contingency cost on top. Merchandise seems to be priced
solely on "what can we sell it for"...

Bingo!

... and I have to feel that the
temptation to cheapen the making phase is a major factor.

A major factor in the overall average lowest common denominator (and
then a huge market *below* that for the price conscious market).

Even at the gorcery store I look for clues that give me an
*impression* of a producer that cares about quality. Where "quality
is job one" is more than a marketing slogan.

I have become rather a fan of being visible on the bike and recently
bought a Cateye Rapid 3 tail light. Cost me something like US$ 25.00
and it is bright. The light I replaced was a made in China 5 LED light
that cost me three bucks, if I remember correctly. Now, the difference
between the two lights seems to be only the brightness and number of
LEDs. the No Name has 5 and the Cateye has 3.

Now, if I went to China and placed an order for, say 10,000 pieces,
what would be the difference in purchase price between the No Name and
the pseudo Cateye? $0.50 each? Maybe less considering that the No Name
has 5 LEDs and the Cateye only 3.

It does makes one wonder whether you really are getting value for
money :-)


Design is part of quality - a big part. Sometimes "craftsmanship"
matters more.

But what craftsmanship?

The injection die to make the plastic case? The tiny circuit board
that holds the LEDs and the integrated flasher circuit?

Frankly from looking at the two lights I can (honestly) say that there
is no apparent difference in build quality. It is possible that the
LEDS and the little control blivet are tested more strictly in the
Cateye but from having owned several of the No Names I'm not sure
whether that is valid as the No Names don't seem to fail (at least in
the two year testing period :-).

I'm not an industrialist, but ISTM if I hand them a design and order
10,000 units, they're going to have to tool up and create processes
and... by the time they've built ten batches of 10,000 they might be
getting the processes tweaked and the tooling calibrated. Problem is,
process tweaking is almost always about crankign out more units
cheaper and... we're back to the original dilemna.


It gets worse. I am ~genuinely anthropomorphic, and feel like the
crafstman imbues a bit of soul into everything he produces, so... it's
a little crazy.

By craftsman do you mean the pressure injection machine that makes the
casings or the robot that sets the electronic parts in the tiny
circuit board?

Which is my point. Here are two gizmos that appear to be identical.
One selling for $3.00 and one for $25.00.

--
Cheers,

John B.

On Jun 1, 9:27 pm, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 1 Jun 2013 09:37:21 -0700 (PDT), Dan O
wrote:



On Jun 1, 4:40 am, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 1 Jun 2013 00:01:48 -0700 (PDT), Dan O
wrote:

On May 31, 5:04 pm, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 31 May 2013 06:58:15 -0700, sms
wrote:

On 5/30/2013 4:42 PM, John B. wrote:

Not really. I already know a bit about that. Perceived value, for
instance. I participated in a marketing experiment back in the late
1950's where we changed the price of an outboard motor monthly for a
while. We discovered that their selling price was very much a factor
in sales. Which seems simple until you find that maximum sales did not
occur at the lowest sales price but at a higher figure. In fact the
sales figure was a bell curve and sales dropped off at both the low
and the high price.

Pricing is a science and an art. If you have two items in a category,
consumers will tend toward the lower priced item. If you have three or
more items in a category they will tend to the mid-priced item.

You rarely price an item at a percentage over the cost of manufacturing,
it's always what you think the market will bear and what your
competitors are charging.

Having worked for a company that built things, and won contracts by
bidding the lowest price, I've always viewed the merchandise market
with considerable skepticism. We used to spend considerable time
calculating our costs to the nth degree and than adding an arbitrary
profit and contingency cost on top. Merchandise seems to be priced
solely on "what can we sell it for"...

Bingo!

... and I have to feel that the
temptation to cheapen the making phase is a major factor.

A major factor in the overall average lowest common denominator (and
then a huge market *below* that for the price conscious market).

Even at the gorcery store I look for clues that give me an
*impression* of a producer that cares about quality. Where "quality
is job one" is more than a marketing slogan.

I have become rather a fan of being visible on the bike and recently
bought a Cateye Rapid 3 tail light. Cost me something like US$ 25.00
and it is bright. The light I replaced was a made in China 5 LED light
that cost me three bucks, if I remember correctly. Now, the difference
between the two lights seems to be only the brightness and number of
LEDs. the No Name has 5 and the Cateye has 3.

Now, if I went to China and placed an order for, say 10,000 pieces,
what would be the difference in purchase price between the No Name and
the pseudo Cateye? $0.50 each? Maybe less considering that the No Name
has 5 LEDs and the Cateye only 3.

It does makes one wonder whether you really are getting value for
money :-)

Design is part of quality - a big part. Sometimes "craftsmanship"
matters more.

But what craftsmanship?

The injection die to make the plastic case? The tiny circuit board
that holds the LEDs and the integrated flasher circuit?

Frankly from looking at the two lights I can (honestly) say that there
is no apparent difference in build quality. It is possible that the
LEDS and the little control blivet are tested more strictly in the
Cateye but from having owned several of the No Names I'm not sure
whether that is valid as the No Names don't seem to fail (at least in
the two year testing period :-).

I'm not an industrialist, but ISTM if I hand them a design and order
10,000 units, they're going to have to tool up and create processes
and... by the time they've built ten batches of 10,000 they might be
getting the processes tweaked and the tooling calibrated. Problem is,
process tweaking is almost always about crankign out more units
cheaper and... we're back to the original dilemna.

It gets worse. I am ~genuinely anthropomorphic, and feel like the
crafstman imbues a bit of soul into everything he produces, so... it's
a little crazy.

By craftsman do you mean the pressure injection machine that makes the
casings or the robot that sets the electronic parts in the tiny
circuit board?

Which is my point. Here are two gizmos that appear to be identical.
One selling for $3.00 and one for $25.00.


I see what you mean; and yeah - my bike lights are all such gizmos
bereft of craftsmanship (or much use for it), and that's okay. If I
had a money tree in the backyard, OTOH...

I was talking more generally about things from bike frames to baked
beans.

On Jun 1, 9:27 pm, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 1 Jun 2013 09:37:21 -0700 (PDT), Dan O
wrote:



On Jun 1, 4:40 am, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 1 Jun 2013 00:01:48 -0700 (PDT), Dan O
wrote:

On May 31, 5:04 pm, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 31 May 2013 06:58:15 -0700, sms
wrote:

On 5/30/2013 4:42 PM, John B. wrote:

Not really. I already know a bit about that. Perceived value, for
instance. I participated in a marketing experiment back in the late
1950's where we changed the price of an outboard motor monthly for a
while. We discovered that their selling price was very much a factor
in sales. Which seems simple until you find that maximum sales did not
occur at the lowest sales price but at a higher figure. In fact the
sales figure was a bell curve and sales dropped off at both the low
and the high price.

Pricing is a science and an art. If you have two items in a category,
consumers will tend toward the lower priced item. If you have three or
more items in a category they will tend to the mid-priced item.

You rarely price an item at a percentage over the cost of manufacturing,
it's always what you think the market will bear and what your
competitors are charging.

Having worked for a company that built things, and won contracts by
bidding the lowest price, I've always viewed the merchandise market
with considerable skepticism. We used to spend considerable time
calculating our costs to the nth degree and than adding an arbitrary
profit and contingency cost on top. Merchandise seems to be priced
solely on "what can we sell it for"...

Bingo!

... and I have to feel that the
temptation to cheapen the making phase is a major factor.

A major factor in the overall average lowest common denominator (and
then a huge market *below* that for the price conscious market).

Even at the gorcery store I look for clues that give me an
*impression* of a producer that cares about quality. Where "quality
is job one" is more than a marketing slogan.

I have become rather a fan of being visible on the bike and recently
bought a Cateye Rapid 3 tail light. Cost me something like US$ 25.00
and it is bright. The light I replaced was a made in China 5 LED light
that cost me three bucks, if I remember correctly. Now, the difference
between the two lights seems to be only the brightness and number of
LEDs. the No Name has 5 and the Cateye has 3.

Now, if I went to China and placed an order for, say 10,000 pieces,
what would be the difference in purchase price between the No Name and
the pseudo Cateye? $0.50 each? Maybe less considering that the No Name
has 5 LEDs and the Cateye only 3.

It does makes one wonder whether you really are getting value for
money :-)

Design is part of quality - a big part. Sometimes "craftsmanship"
matters more.

But what craftsmanship?

The injection die to make the plastic case? The tiny circuit board
that holds the LEDs and the integrated flasher circuit?

Frankly from looking at the two lights I can (honestly) say that there
is no apparent difference in build quality. It is possible that the
LEDS and the little control blivet are tested more strictly in the
Cateye but from having owned several of the No Names I'm not sure
whether that is valid as the No Names don't seem to fail (at least in
the two year testing period :-).


I might qualify my acknowledgement that craftsmanship doesn't have a
place in inexpensive bike lights, except, remember, I ride in some
seriously wet weather, and had a not-so-inexpensive healdight fail due
to water ingress. Taking it apart to try and get it dried out
(because the damn thing was sealed well enough to prevent evaporation
drying it out, but not quite well enough to keep the electronics dry :-
(, I discovered the ingress vector was a section of the flange
surrounding the rubber switch cover _that was poorly glued_! (A
little attention to detail, people.)

Also, I imagine 90% of what I paid for this headlight went to
middlemen.

I'm not an industrialist, but ISTM if I hand them a design and order
10,000 units, they're going to have to tool up and create processes
and... by the time they've built ten batches of 10,000 they might be
getting the processes tweaked and the tooling calibrated. Problem is,
process tweaking is almost always about crankign out more units
cheaper and... we're back to the original dilemna.

It gets worse. I am ~genuinely anthropomorphic, and feel like the
crafstman imbues a bit of soul into everything he produces, so... it's
a little crazy.

By craftsman do you mean the pressure injection machine that makes the
casings or the robot that sets the electronic parts in the tiny
circuit board?

Which is my point. Here are two gizmos that appear to be identical.
One selling for $3.00 and one for $25.00.

On Sat, 1 Jun 2013 21:47:58 -0700 (PDT), Dan O
wrote:

On Jun 1, 9:27 pm, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 1 Jun 2013 09:37:21 -0700 (PDT), Dan O
wrote:



On Jun 1, 4:40 am, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 1 Jun 2013 00:01:48 -0700 (PDT), Dan O
wrote:

On May 31, 5:04 pm, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 31 May 2013 06:58:15 -0700, sms
wrote:

On 5/30/2013 4:42 PM, John B. wrote:

Not really. I already know a bit about that. Perceived value, for
instance. I participated in a marketing experiment back in the late
1950's where we changed the price of an outboard motor monthly for a
while. We discovered that their selling price was very much a factor
in sales. Which seems simple until you find that maximum sales did not
occur at the lowest sales price but at a higher figure. In fact the
sales figure was a bell curve and sales dropped off at both the low
and the high price.

Pricing is a science and an art. If you have two items in a category,
consumers will tend toward the lower priced item. If you have three or
more items in a category they will tend to the mid-priced item.

You rarely price an item at a percentage over the cost of manufacturing,
it's always what you think the market will bear and what your
competitors are charging.

Having worked for a company that built things, and won contracts by
bidding the lowest price, I've always viewed the merchandise market
with considerable skepticism. We used to spend considerable time
calculating our costs to the nth degree and than adding an arbitrary
profit and contingency cost on top. Merchandise seems to be priced
solely on "what can we sell it for"...

Bingo!

... and I have to feel that the
temptation to cheapen the making phase is a major factor.

A major factor in the overall average lowest common denominator (and
then a huge market *below* that for the price conscious market).

Even at the gorcery store I look for clues that give me an
*impression* of a producer that cares about quality. Where "quality
is job one" is more than a marketing slogan.

I have become rather a fan of being visible on the bike and recently
bought a Cateye Rapid 3 tail light. Cost me something like US$ 25.00
and it is bright. The light I replaced was a made in China 5 LED light
that cost me three bucks, if I remember correctly. Now, the difference
between the two lights seems to be only the brightness and number of
LEDs. the No Name has 5 and the Cateye has 3.

Now, if I went to China and placed an order for, say 10,000 pieces,
what would be the difference in purchase price between the No Name and
the pseudo Cateye? $0.50 each? Maybe less considering that the No Name
has 5 LEDs and the Cateye only 3.

It does makes one wonder whether you really are getting value for
money :-)

Design is part of quality - a big part. Sometimes "craftsmanship"
matters more.

But what craftsmanship?

The injection die to make the plastic case? The tiny circuit board
that holds the LEDs and the integrated flasher circuit?

Frankly from looking at the two lights I can (honestly) say that there
is no apparent difference in build quality. It is possible that the
LEDS and the little control blivet are tested more strictly in the
Cateye but from having owned several of the No Names I'm not sure
whether that is valid as the No Names don't seem to fail (at least in
the two year testing period :-).

I'm not an industrialist, but ISTM if I hand them a design and order
10,000 units, they're going to have to tool up and create processes
and... by the time they've built ten batches of 10,000 they might be
getting the processes tweaked and the tooling calibrated. Problem is,
process tweaking is almost always about crankign out more units
cheaper and... we're back to the original dilemna.

It gets worse. I am ~genuinely anthropomorphic, and feel like the
crafstman imbues a bit of soul into everything he produces, so... it's
a little crazy.

By craftsman do you mean the pressure injection machine that makes the
casings or the robot that sets the electronic parts in the tiny
circuit board?

Which is my point. Here are two gizmos that appear to be identical.
One selling for $3.00 and one for $25.00.


I see what you mean; and yeah - my bike lights are all such gizmos
bereft of craftsmanship (or much use for it), and that's okay. If I
had a money tree in the backyard, OTOH...

I was talking more generally about things from bike frames to baked
beans.

Well yes, if you are talking about people who create thing. Although I
have the impression that the real craftsmen are getting thin on the
ground. I suppose that they really aren't they are just doing other
things; like programming CNC machines. And too, I'm not sure how much
craftsmanship is evidenced in, say the Trek factory, where, I suspect,
nirvana is attained when each and every frame is exactly the same :-)


--
Cheers,

John B.

On 6/1/2013 9:57 PM, Dan O wrote:

I might qualify my acknowledgement that craftsmanship doesn't have a
place in inexpensive bike lights, except, remember, I ride in some
seriously wet weather, and had a not-so-inexpensive healdight fail due
to water ingress. Taking it apart to try and get it dried out
(because the damn thing was sealed well enough to prevent evaporation
drying it out, but not quite well enough to keep the electronics dry :-
(, I discovered the ingress vector was a section of the flange
surrounding the rubber switch cover _that was poorly glued_! (A
little attention to detail, people.)

Actually lights for bicycles (rather than bicycle lights) are an item
where quality and functionality don't seem to correlate much with price.
You can have a waterproof, high quality, high intensity, high function
light for a bicycle that costs $15 or you can pay $200 or more for no
real benefit (and actually lower functionality).

On Sun, 02 Jun 2013 07:47:36 -0700, sms
wrote:

On 6/1/2013 9:57 PM, Dan O wrote:

I might qualify my acknowledgement that craftsmanship doesn't have a
place in inexpensive bike lights, except, remember, I ride in some
seriously wet weather, and had a not-so-inexpensive healdight fail due
to water ingress. Taking it apart to try and get it dried out
(because the damn thing was sealed well enough to prevent evaporation
drying it out, but not quite well enough to keep the electronics dry :-
(, I discovered the ingress vector was a section of the flange
surrounding the rubber switch cover _that was poorly glued_! (A
little attention to detail, people.)

Actually lights for bicycles (rather than bicycle lights) are an item
where quality and functionality don't seem to correlate much with price.
You can have a waterproof, high quality, high intensity, high function
light for a bicycle that costs $15 or you can pay $200 or more for no
real benefit (and actually lower functionality).


I think that the phenomena goes a bit further that bicycle lights.

Remember back in the day when "blue jeans" were a working man's wear
and cost $5.00 a pair? Now look at them. They "stone wash" them,
i.e., rub them on a rock, and charge you $200 a pair for the same old
five dollar jeans, except that they are half way worn out :-)

--
Cheers,

John B.

On 5/31/2013 7:49 PM, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 31 May 2013 09:48:01 -0400,
wrote:

On 5/31/2013 9:28 AM, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 31 May 2013 08:30:35 -0400,
wrote:

On 5/31/2013 6:51 AM, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 31 May 2013 06:41:06 -0400, Duane
wrote:

On 5/30/2013 5:15 PM, sms wrote:
On 5/30/2013 1:53 PM, Jay Beattie wrote:

That's not true at all. Name brand producers police production, do
QC, have ISO compliant factories, have sophisticated domestic
designers.

The bottom line is that the direct buyers of these frames are not
reporting any more failures than the buyers of name brand frames. Well
part of it may be Frank's theory of risk compensation and the buyers
of the frames direct from China are treating them better.

I'm not seeing well made CF frames breaking in great number. Maybe
the bleeding edge stuff is disposable, but even if that is true,
that's why you get the lifetime warranty.

As I said, that's the value advantage of buying a Trek or Specialized
from an authorized dealer, it's the warranty.


I don't agree with that. The warrant may make you more comfortable with
the idea of buying a bike with a frame that isn't lugged steel but the
dealers provide a lot of value added dimensions to the bike. Jay gave
you several examples. My Tarmac frame is a result of a lot of
engineering, testing and design. That doesn't come for free. And the
bike is more than the frame.

At any rate, not everyone is going to buy their frame and put together a
bike from scratch. If they do, they won't have a Tarmac. They'll have
a CF frame bike that they built themselves. Plusses and minuses there.


I've always been a bit ambiguous about "life time warranty". Is it
because they've built something that never breaks or is it that it
breaks so often that they need to offer the warranty to get people to
take them :-?

I think that the warranty is meant to deal with people's perception that
the frames are not as durable as a bike made of metal.

could be although I don't remember carbon golf club shafts being
touted as having a lifetime guarantee. Or all the fiberglass yachts
:-)

But I think that you are right. Perception is everything.

I don't know about it being everything but when I bought my bike I asked
about the durability. You hear a lot of people saying that CF frames
are fragile. On the other hand, the only frame that I ever broke was
aluminum and that was the fork that cracked.

There is no reason that carbon fiber composites have to be fragile,
in fact fiberglass boats, made with a much weaker reinforcing material
are far from fragile. But, working with a material that is really only
strong in tension, and attempting to build something that is extremely
light, when lack of weight is the mark of success, does tend to result
in something that is less strong then it is possible to make.

As for perception... Do you ask about the durability when you buy a
steel or aluminum frame? Probably not as they aren't perceived to be
fragile.


No. That was my point. Also, I work in the heat treating industry so I
understand a bit about steel. I didn't know anything about CF. Still
don't know much about it except that it's light and seems to ride well.

On 5/31/2013 8:04 PM, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 31 May 2013 06:58:15 -0700,
wrote:

On 5/30/2013 4:42 PM, John B. wrote:

Not really. I already know a bit about that. Perceived value, for
instance. I participated in a marketing experiment back in the late
1950's where we changed the price of an outboard motor monthly for a
while. We discovered that their selling price was very much a factor
in sales. Which seems simple until you find that maximum sales did not
occur at the lowest sales price but at a higher figure. In fact the
sales figure was a bell curve and sales dropped off at both the low
and the high price.

Pricing is a science and an art. If you have two items in a category,
consumers will tend toward the lower priced item. If you have three or
more items in a category they will tend to the mid-priced item.

You rarely price an item at a percentage over the cost of manufacturing,
it's always what you think the market will bear and what your
competitors are charging.

Having worked for a company that built things, and won contracts by
bidding the lowest price, I've always viewed the merchandise market
with considerable skepticism. We used to spend considerable time
calculating our costs to the nth degree and than adding an arbitrary
profit and contingency cost on top. Merchandise seems to be priced
solely on "what can we sell it for" and I have to feel that the
temptation to cheapen the making phase is a major factor.


Wasn't it John Glenn that said on his first mission waiting on the
launch pad that all he could think of was that he was sitting on top of
millions of dollars of equipment, all made at lowest bid?

On Mon, 03 Jun 2013 09:03:23 -0400, Duane
wrote:

On 5/31/2013 8:04 PM, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 31 May 2013 06:58:15 -0700,
wrote:

On 5/30/2013 4:42 PM, John B. wrote:

Not really. I already know a bit about that. Perceived value, for
instance. I participated in a marketing experiment back in the late
1950's where we changed the price of an outboard motor monthly for a
while. We discovered that their selling price was very much a factor
in sales. Which seems simple until you find that maximum sales did not
occur at the lowest sales price but at a higher figure. In fact the
sales figure was a bell curve and sales dropped off at both the low
and the high price.

Pricing is a science and an art. If you have two items in a category,
consumers will tend toward the lower priced item. If you have three or
more items in a category they will tend to the mid-priced item.

You rarely price an item at a percentage over the cost of manufacturing,
it's always what you think the market will bear and what your
competitors are charging.

Having worked for a company that built things, and won contracts by
bidding the lowest price, I've always viewed the merchandise market
with considerable skepticism. We used to spend considerable time
calculating our costs to the nth degree and than adding an arbitrary
profit and contingency cost on top. Merchandise seems to be priced
solely on "what can we sell it for" and I have to feel that the
temptation to cheapen the making phase is a major factor.


Wasn't it John Glenn that said on his first mission waiting on the
launch pad that all he could think of was that he was sitting on top of
millions of dollars of equipment, all made at lowest bid?

That was a common saying in the Military. I had a friend, EWO on a
B-52. He used to enquire, "how would you like to go to war in a
machine built by the lowest bidder"?
--
Cheers,

John B.