You buy that $20 Tornado thingy and it does absolutely nothing for your vehicle…and it cost about $0.03US to make.
There’s a local restaurant chain called Noodles & co. They sell pasta with stir fried vegatables…a bowl is, maybe $6…and it’s another $1.50 to $2.50 to add protein to the mix. Pasta wins hands down for cost per volume, that $6 bowl has about $0.12 worth of semolina, egg, and water in it.
On the other hand, there’s a car product called Water Wetter. It DOES work as advertised (reduces engine operating temp by 20-40 degrees F. IT’s aquart bottle with distilled water, some food coloring, and a tiny bit of detergent. Cost per bottle’s gotta top out at $0.10 per. But you’re paying for the R&D for the right amounts of detergent I guess.
Designer sunglasses. I’ve never paid more than $10 a pair for any in my life and I mostly aim for the $3 affairs sold on clearance. Oakley, I’m lookin’ at you -and- my soon-to-be ex-husband. Yep, there are reasons for that folks.
Add to that handbags (I can’t even name some in vogue, I’m so clueless) that one can purchase for $300 off of QVC or big bucks for an SUV. I was appalled that I actually spent almost 15 whole dollars on one the other day (purse, not vehicle, mind you) and fought against my ‘buyer’s remorse’ NOT to take it back. As for that kind of transportation, if that much money (like I’d have it anyway) ever left my ownership, it would be to buy a house. Of course, if I lived out of it and then drove it to work, it might be different story entirely.
I would dispute that a Rolex is truly a “hi-end wristwatch.” Regardless, to answer your question, a mechanical wristwatch can be a truly fine work of craftsmanship, perhaps even art. Some people appreciate the incredible skill required to create a movement, especially one with installed complications. Many, of course, simply by one as a status symbol–IMHO most Rolex buyers (not all) fall into this category.
Many an idiot has entered into a relationship with sex as the primary driver, only to lose everything they own down the road, including their name and reputation.
Anything at Restoration Hardware, which sells reproductions of antiques to people with more money than brains.
A friend of mine used to work at the one near Bayview subway and I went in there one time. It was mind-boggling. The one thing I remember was a galvized-metal lunchbox, the kind of thing you get for three dollars in Chinatown, going for sixty…
A pack of cigarrettes has a huge mark up. They go for around $3.50 where I’m at. I was informed that government at all levels make more on cigarrettes than the orginal manufacturer.
Software gets my vote. Take into account how many gazillion copies of an operating system will be sold by Willy Gates, et cie. They’ve gotta be using front end loaders to move the money in Redmond. I’ve bought it for my home PC, and I have to pay full note for another license to run it on my laptop instead of just a token fee for a secondary usage in the same household? Robbery with a pen.
Frames for prescription eyeglasses. I worked at a Kmart once and some only cost the store around $20.00 and were sold for well over $100.00. I can only guess that some of that cost goes towards professional services but so should part of the $250.00 from the lenses. Overpriced all around.
what is it? Pay me 50$ and I’ll name a star after you.
I can see it now, speed forward 1000 yrs: Space Colony ship 9 aproaches the system “Aunt Mildred”. :dubious:
Are we talking about things that are expensive becasue they are rare? Or things that are expensive because of convienence?
For the rarities: The Honus Wagner T206 Baseball card sold on ebay in the past couple years for $1.3 million. I’d guess it costed significantly less than that to make. I’m sure there are several other examples with stamps, comics, antiques, etc.
For the convienence: Good ones listed already – Movie popcorn and fountain soda seem to me to top the list.
Also, this struck me as insane. An Audi keyless entry remote costs $120 from the dealership. Not the whole system for your car, I actually mean the little remote key fob thing with three buttons on it. I nearly **** my pants when the lady on the phone told me that. I got one ebay for $17.
I think all the cost goes into putting it into those little plastic applicators and the R&D on the proper viscosity.
All toiletries seem to cost an arm and a leg. Especially potpourri. It’s the least labor intensive product since ice (you freakin’ let stuff dry, ferchrissakes), yet they fell the need to charge you 20 bucks for an ounce or so.
After working at Suncoast for a few years and getting a 10% above cost discount at Best Buy, I gotta tell you, the biggest markups on stuff that a lot of people actually buy are on accessories. Cel phone chargers, USB cords, memory cards - you wouldn’t believe the markup. The usual price to me was maybe 4 bucks for every retail 25. And that’s just on cost to the store, nothing on cost to actually make. In contrast, you didn’t get much of a discount on media - DVDs and CDs seem to not have a big margin for the store. Obviously they do for the manufacturer.
I can’t believe nobody has mentioned high-end speaker cables yet. In every credible double blind test done, cables costing up to $1,000 per foot are indistinguishable from lamp cord. Yet theres still a burgeoning market of pseudoscientific quackerly gulling people out of their money with this crap.
