Comment by kulahan
4 hours ago
$500 for something you might wear for a decade straight? A brand-new pair of Levis at JC Penny is gonna run you like $90 anyways. It's not that much more expensive.
But also, quality has diminishing returns in basically every category. At the low end, it's extremely efficient to improve the quality of your product and charge a bit more. At the high end, you can't make any more inexpensive moves to set yourself apart, so you use higher end materials, fabrication methods, and workers.
> A brand-new pair of Levis at JC Penny is gonna run you like $90 anyways
I'm seeing a range of around $33 to $60 at the moment, with other brands dipping under $30.
https://www.jcpenney.com/g/men/jeans?id=cat100250010
Every pair on that page is ~$70, but some are on sale. I overassumed a little on inflation for them, I guess.
It's part of their pricing strategy. There's always a sale. Consumers think they're getting $70 pants for $40 instead of thinking they got $40 pants.
Ron Johnson of Apple Store fame famously tried to change this when he became JCP's CEO and...barely lasted a year!
When I go into the store four years ago, Levi jeans are $100. Yet even Macy's website shows them for $60 now?
Maybe there was some significant quality degradation. They recently added elastic fibers to like their entire khaki shorts line, which makes them dramatically less durable. I bet they did the same here.
> $500 for something [...] run you like $90 anyways. It's not that much more expensive.
To be honest, I did abandoned school as quickly as I could and my math skills aren't that of my peers, but 5x times as much is pretty "much more expensive" for most people out there, not sure how someone can say else with a straight face. $100 vs $500 would easily be a "Can I eat properly the entire month?" decision for a lot of the population.
Wrong comparison.
The right comparison is "For people who can spend $500 on a pair of pants, what is the financial difference between $100 and $500?"
For most of that subpopulation, not much.
What in Silicon Valley salary is this statement?
Median weekly salary is 1159 according to BLS. That’s 7% of weekly salary vs 43% of weekly salary.
It's a few hundred bucks. If you're in the category of buying luxury pants, this is not much money. I really do not care how affordable it is for people making minimum wage, and am obviously not talking about their perspective.
Yes you were, when you brought (fake) JC Penney prices in for comparison.
HN is full of very wealthy people, I don’t think pointing this out is that useful. It’s pretty obvious who the target audience is there.
I can wear a $40 pair of jeans that I really like and keep buying for its style and durability and invest the $460 remaining dollars and in 10 years I would have about $1200