They say an internal auditor knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
I was out and about doing a bit of shopping today. In Decathlon (a big sports shop out of town) they had a reasonably nice single speed “mountain” bike on sale for £69.95. The bike had several “features” that would have been “selling points” at some time during my time as a cyclist: alloy cotterless cranks, alloy wheels, V brakes, fat tyres, unicrown forks, “oversize” tubes. By today’s standards it was heavy and primitive, but nevertheless it was not a bad bike, for 70 quid.
For non-UK readers, £70 = approximately 27 pints of beer in a pub, or about 14 bottles of not bad wine.
Then in another shop, I saw a toilet roll holder for £125, and another for £235.
I didn’t buy the toilet roll holders.
Now think how many components there are in one wheel of a bicycle (36 spokes, 36 nipples, a rim, a hub shell, bearings, spindle… all of decent grade aluminium alloy or steel - and how many components there are in a toilet roll holder, made of cheap mild steel and a bit of thin chrome plating. Basically, a stick on a circular base, with a horizontal bit to hold the roll.
Even the perceived cost to produce a commodity is subjective, dependent upon the individual’s ability to procure resources and energy to perform work on those resources. A tank of hydrogen costs more than a tank of Earth’s atmosphere and yet arguably more time and energy has been put into producing the much more rare elements in the atmosphere.
Market value is only as well defined as one’s market, and a lot of times in economic theory these markets are “idealized” in some ultimately unrealistic way or another: the treachery of generalization.
Interesting observation. I think the sense lies in the fact that a lot of people have more money than sense. If you put a high price tag and someone pays it then you just got more profit than you would have if you charged less. Someone might want to impress their friends with the most expensive toilet-roll holder or the most expensive bike even if one cheaper works as good.
The cost of food intrigues me. Some places charge so much that most of their food doesn’t get sold and it gets thrown away. Why are they making the food? Is it to feed people or to make money? Surely if the food cost less more would be sold- it makes me wonder how they arrive at the cost efficiency value/price that ends up in so much waste.
If only we could determine the “real” cost of things. A lot of costs are hidden and deceptive. It is interesting how a computer company might make a batch of computers- and disable a feature (sabotage) in some of them in order to cheaply make a cheaper model rather than make a whole production line of lesser machines, just so they can target the cheap end of the market. The same foods are packaged and priced differently deliberately to get the most of all types of customers spending money- budget, medium or fancy.
It is interesting the amount of trees we in the western world cut down, process, and bleach just to continue our wasteful toilet habits. Unbleached toiletpaper won’t sell. Wiping your bum with water and your left hand and shaking hands with your right hand is not an attractive idea for a lot of us, but is probably a lot more efficient.
Because most people who go on comparison websites are buying solely on the basis of price, and some insurers are selling on the basis of better cover and better service.
Insurance is a strange product: you buy it hoping you will never use it. Therefore, you buy a cheap policy. However, if you really believed you weren’t going to use it, you wouldn’t buy it at all, so the fact that you’re buying it proves you are afraid you may have to use it…
So the more cautious person buys the best cover they can possibly get, just in case - but because they are cautious by nature, they are far less likely to need it anyway.
I guess you’re referring to Direct Line. As someone who is insured with them, I can say with some authority that the reason they’re not on price comparison websites is because they’re so much more expensive than the competition and nobody would bother with them!
Where does one buy £100 a roll toilet paper to use on such a toilet roll holder? While I can see goldleaf being sufficiently expensive and flexible, I have grave doubts about it’s absorbancy…