I would recommend Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior by Geoffrey Miller to get an answer to the question. You are signaling your potential mates with what you are buying.
I will never understand how people are still confused about stuff like this. Yeah, there's a bunch of markup on these products and a large chunk goes to marketing, but people pay more for things that a) look better, and b) last longer.
Your $3 pair of dad socks and underwear will have a hole in them in a year or will be too stretched to wear. Sure, you'll save a few hundred on a mattress from Walmart, but maybe that'll lead to back problems that cost you way more down the line.
And you're confused why Hershey - who has existed making chocolate since the 1800s and makes over a billion pounds of chocolate per year - can sell it cheaper than a small business making speciality chocolate?
You have a lot of faith in these companies. These companies are essentially marketing companies. They outsource their production to China or other places w/ that expertise, same as everyone else. They're even less transparent where they make their socks, just a one liner in their FAQ and since they're private I doubt you'll find an audit of their production.
Take look their jobs posting. There are no jobs for machine operator or sock designer, they're all marketing, IT or finance jobs. The companies were founded 10 years ago by MBA graduates, not some connoisseur artisanal sock makers. Guess their marketing works tho...
broad brush painting here and I think you're aware of it. overall point is well-taken, and I came to parallel conclusions: a lot of these new products I see are little more than repackaged old products with marketing. one of the most egregious ones I've seen was literally a safety razor but 'made for african hair and skin'
Simply put, you don't understand it because you're not the target market. To elaborate further, it's clear you immediately look at these products from a cost/benefit which is a typically male approach. The demographic they cater towards are women who want the brand factor and younger males who also virtue signal with their purchases.
It's this logic that drives the fast-fashion industry. You and everyone else in society ends up absorbing the cost of cheaper goods and ultimately it ends up being more costly for both consumers and producers to try to maintain markets for, "lesser goods" despite labor costs for producers and costs for consumers being lowered. You've got to understand that your ability to buy something for an artificially low price is caused by globalization. Those low prices roundabout into lowers wages for workers domestically by horizontally stratifying international labor markets. That means less disposable income for you and all your friends which means your socks are now, "more expensive" (cost a greater % of your actual income) due to your decision(s) over time to buy cheaper socks. Consider the alternative where there is an domestic economy for consumer goods (socks) where-in you would pay more for goods (socks) overall but because the domestic consumer economy is circular (you buy socks from your friends/their friends) the net effect is that despite goods, "costing more" that overall the entire consumer economy is benefitted by constant income growth for both consumers and producers. This leads to growth in the economy which facilitates progressive re-investment of profits into the infrastructure which can lead to innovations that lead to increases in the production quality and efficiency which can further income increases cyclically so long as the domestic consumer economy isn't disrupted.
Why shouldn't we expect some businesses to try to cater to the wealthy-but-retarded consumer segment's desire to massively overspend on goods that have far cheaper comparables?
https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/free.png
I would recommend Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior by Geoffrey Miller to get an answer to the question. You are signaling your potential mates with what you are buying.
"Ain't nobody want to shag on your used Walmart mattress"
it's not that crude, it's much more subtle: the things we buy signal what we value
I will never understand how people are still confused about stuff like this. Yeah, there's a bunch of markup on these products and a large chunk goes to marketing, but people pay more for things that a) look better, and b) last longer.
Your $3 pair of dad socks and underwear will have a hole in them in a year or will be too stretched to wear. Sure, you'll save a few hundred on a mattress from Walmart, but maybe that'll lead to back problems that cost you way more down the line.
And you're confused why Hershey - who has existed making chocolate since the 1800s and makes over a billion pounds of chocolate per year - can sell it cheaper than a small business making speciality chocolate?
You have a lot of faith in these companies. These companies are essentially marketing companies. They outsource their production to China or other places w/ that expertise, same as everyone else. They're even less transparent where they make their socks, just a one liner in their FAQ and since they're private I doubt you'll find an audit of their production.
Take look their jobs posting. There are no jobs for machine operator or sock designer, they're all marketing, IT or finance jobs. The companies were founded 10 years ago by MBA graduates, not some connoisseur artisanal sock makers. Guess their marketing works tho...
Using his numbers, he could by 13 pairs of cheap socks for the same price as 1 pair of expensive socks.
He could buy 11 pairs of cheap underwear for the same price as 1 pair of expensive underwear.
The expensive socks and underwear will have to last well over a decade for him just to break even, relative to buying the cheap options.
Trudat brother! Some people like to buy expensive new shit, others prefer buying stocks and ETFs
broad brush painting here and I think you're aware of it. overall point is well-taken, and I came to parallel conclusions: a lot of these new products I see are little more than repackaged old products with marketing. one of the most egregious ones I've seen was literally a safety razor but 'made for african hair and skin'
Simply put, you don't understand it because you're not the target market. To elaborate further, it's clear you immediately look at these products from a cost/benefit which is a typically male approach. The demographic they cater towards are women who want the brand factor and younger males who also virtue signal with their purchases.
It's this logic that drives the fast-fashion industry. You and everyone else in society ends up absorbing the cost of cheaper goods and ultimately it ends up being more costly for both consumers and producers to try to maintain markets for, "lesser goods" despite labor costs for producers and costs for consumers being lowered. You've got to understand that your ability to buy something for an artificially low price is caused by globalization. Those low prices roundabout into lowers wages for workers domestically by horizontally stratifying international labor markets. That means less disposable income for you and all your friends which means your socks are now, "more expensive" (cost a greater % of your actual income) due to your decision(s) over time to buy cheaper socks. Consider the alternative where there is an domestic economy for consumer goods (socks) where-in you would pay more for goods (socks) overall but because the domestic consumer economy is circular (you buy socks from your friends/their friends) the net effect is that despite goods, "costing more" that overall the entire consumer economy is benefitted by constant income growth for both consumers and producers. This leads to growth in the economy which facilitates progressive re-investment of profits into the infrastructure which can lead to innovations that lead to increases in the production quality and efficiency which can further income increases cyclically so long as the domestic consumer economy isn't disrupted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferior_good
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_thrift
You're not saving money by wearing cheap socks and underwear, eating bad food, or sleeping on an uncomfortable bed.
Why shouldn't we expect some businesses to try to cater to the wealthy-but-retarded consumer segment's desire to massively overspend on goods that have far cheaper comparables?
It's to me quite like a Hydra trying to chew off its own head.