I was in the grocery store, and they had Crest Whitestrips. Basically, it is a pack of 28 “upper” and “lower” plastic strips with goo on them that you apply to your teeth over the course of 2 weeks to whiten your teeth. Sounds good. Problem: $44.99. Is this what the market will bear, or is there some real manufacturing cost? It seems like these ingredients would cost all of .26 to make.
Because most people who are worried about having whiter teeth can afford $44.99. Basically you are buying concentrated hydrogen peroxide, among other things.
Like most cosmetics on the market, it’s priced at a the highest level that the greatest majority or the target audience will pay. It’s a vanity item and higher prices are the norm. Toothpaste, a hygiene product, is arguably a more complicated product, but is more reasonably priced. There’s more competition for a greater range of consumers, so the price has to be lower.
Also, these over the counter teeth whiteners are not very effective. Check out consumer reports to find out objectively what works and what doesn’t.
I saw a bum on the side of the road a few days ago holding a sign that read: “NEED MONEY FOR TEETH WHITENER”. He told me he had $35.00 and only need a little more.
Nothing new here–12 oz. of Coke costs about $.02 to make. You pay for the can, the transportation, and mostly the marketing. That’s right, most of the cost is what it costs to get you to buy it in the first place.
In Economics 101 you learn that price has little to do with what it costs the manufacturer to make it. The selling price is the price at which the quantity they are willing to sell equals the number that people are willing to buy.
In this case, the price can be high because the alternative is to go to your dentist for similar treatment but pay a whole lot more. In the case of the whitening tape, the industry realized that mass marketing these things would piss off the dentists so they developed a solution with a slightly stronger formula that has to be purchased through dentists at quite a premium.
Actually $44.99 sounds like a bargain. A dentist will charge you about $400. I don’t think there is anything different about what they do and what you can get over the counter.
I know that some of the cheaper whiteners have plastic molds that don’t fit your teeth very well, still…