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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1531 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 22, 2024

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Customer tolerance of established customs and traditions. Everyone has more or less agreed that is what you are charged for and that's fine. Customers would perceive any other system as more unfair and ridiculous than this system.

In the same way that off the rack clothing items are priced at a single price point for all sizes, rather than increasing the cost with each increase in size for the larger quantity of material, or charging more for odd sizes that are more expensive on the margin for the store to produce and stock. People would be upset if fatsos or tall guys had to pay more for a shirt to pay for the material, or if skinny women paid more for a dress because it's not as profitable to stock that size. The perception of unfairness would harm the company. This holds even where crossing size categories produces weird arbitrage: my wife buys boys extra large LL Bean flannels rather than women's S, because the boys price is cheaper. People would find it inequitable to charge parents of fat boys more money, so the price is set at the median cost the same as for a smaller kid. Meanwhile, while I would happily pay more to be able to buy 11ee sneakers, stores can't really charge extra for the "same" product so I have to buy from specific stores and brands, with worse prices and/or results than if I was just charged extra.

Although, for your carry on lead bricks example, I think the airline would say fine pussy do it. Most people won't choose to carry more than perhaps 30lbs around the airport. Let alone do it twice. As for moving the items between bags, imagine how many pissed off customers they'd have to deal with if they didn't allow people to remove items? And if they don't let you move them right there, you'd just go around the corner and do it and pretend you threw things away.

In the same way that off the rack clothing items are priced at a single price point for all sizes, rather than increasing the cost with each increase in size for the larger quantity of material...

Actually, larger sizes do always cost more in my experience. Once you get above like an XL, maybe 2XL it will cost you more.

https://www.schottnyc.com/products/steerhide-perfecto.htm

So this is what I was thinking of. 945 between sizes 32 and 46. That's a pretty damn wide material spread! A 46 (xl or XXL?) is probably close to twice as much leather as a 32 (xs). That's a remarkable uniformity in pricing!

I rarely even see sizes above xl stocked at most stores I frequent so you're probably correct. But my point stands: we don't start charging more until you're in truly circus freak size categories and will accept it. For folks in the normal-ish range we just accept that some are paying extra for material and some are getting a bargain on material.

But my point stands: we don't start charging more until you're in truly circus freak size categories and will accept it.

I'm not so sure that is true, in the US at least. A fairly hefty chunk of the population (perhaps most, IDK the statistics) is in the "you pay more" zone. I suspect that it's not about how many people have to pay the increased cost, but how much the increase is. Even if you pay 20% more for a shirt, on a $10 shirt that's only $2 and that's small enough that most people won't notice it.

Many companies discriminate by having separate lines for standard and plus size. The brands I shop from regularly stop at XL or XXL, and people larger than that have to buy from a different brand altogether. When I looked into it, that seems to have as much to do with certain styles not even working as intended on larger figures, as much as amount of fabric used. That makes it hard to compare costs, since many items are simply unavailable in larger sizes, but brands that cater to explicitly carrying all sizes at the same price point, such as Universal Standard, are pretty expensive for what you get.

All of this(the entire comment chain) is pointing to 'a fairly small part of the price of clothes is materials', which I think is actually the correct answer to the original question.

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