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therealbovine
Feb 19, 2003, 10:26 PM
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Padding is really expensive, especially the good stuff ($60-100). The fabric is also expensive ($10+ yd.). Then factor in Sewing machine cost, labor cost, advertising, research and developement, shipping, it all adds up very fast. I remember buying my Cordless pad out of the back of Corey's RV @ Hueco tanks back in the day. They were a bit cheaper....but its still a spendy manufacturing process. Source out the materials online. I'll bet you come up with a # pretty close to what they sell them for retail!
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weaselman
Feb 19, 2003, 10:32 PM
Post #27 of 48
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crash pads are so expensive because they can be. whoever makes them knows that boulderers who know what they're doing will demand that element of safety, so they'll buy one no matter how much it costs (up to a point). if you were a crash pad maker, and you could sell them for 50 dollars or 175 dollars, and either way ppl would buy them, which would you pick? :wink:
oh, i just scrolled up and saw dave's post, and he said it better than i did.
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t-dog
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Feb 19, 2003, 10:47 PM
Post #28 of 48
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Obviously, the people that are blaming high crashpad prices on the "cause they can" excuse have never looked into buying foam. That stuff is really expensive, especially for the closed cell foam. I was thinking of going out and buying the materials and making my own, but the price difference isn't all that great. I got a 50 dollar Bittersweet crashpad last year at the PBC and I spent about 35$ adding more layers of closed cell foam to make it usable for highballs!!!!
That sh!t is expensive dude!!!!!
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squid
Nov 15, 2005, 4:50 AM
Post #29 of 48
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Ok I got your answer............they have to make money to go places, to film things, so they can find people who will buy their stuff. Duh.
short answer: because they are
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fear
Nov 15, 2005, 5:10 AM
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They waited two years for your wisdom.
Thank you.
-Fear
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gamehendge
Nov 15, 2005, 5:16 AM
Post #31 of 48
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From last I checked, surgery for broken ankles are not that cheap either. It's your life. Suck it up.
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paulraphael
Nov 21, 2005, 3:09 AM
Post #32 of 48
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In reply to: Obviously, the people that are blaming high crashpad prices on the "cause they can" excuse have never looked into buying foam.
They're also not being realistic about how competitve markets work. Unless they think there's a price-fixing conspiracy among gear makers.
I suspect the markup in the climbing world is lower than in most retail worlds (sports equipment especially). At any rate, if anyone could make pads as well for less money, they'd be doing it, and they'd own the market.
But the cost of fabric, labor, overhead, advertising, distribution, sales, and don't forget insurance, all add up.
On a related note, anyone who's asking "why do climbing shoes cost so much" really needs to wake up and look at what other kinds of shoes cost. My last pair of Chuck Taylors cost $40, and they're nothing but a slab of rubber and canvas. Take a look at cycling shoes, ski boots, golf shoes, or for the biggest sticker shock, dress shoes.
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gordo
Nov 21, 2005, 4:30 AM
Post #33 of 48
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In reply to: They waited two years for your wisdom. Thank you. -Fear
:lol: almost 3 :shock: and to think the prices have gone up $10 :roll:
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crackers
Nov 23, 2005, 5:56 PM
Post #34 of 48
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In reply to: Padding is really expensive, especially the good stuff ($60-100). The fabric is also expensive ($10+ yd.). Then factor in Sewing machine cost, labor cost, advertising, research and developement, shipping, it all adds up very fast. I remember buying my Cordless pad out of the back of Corey's RV @ Hueco tanks back in the day. They were a bit cheaper....but its still a spendy manufacturing process. Source out the materials online. I'll bet you come up with a # pretty close to what they sell them for retail!
Not quite.
You're going to use two kinds of foam, probably in the 90kg/m3 for the soft and 120-150kg/m3 for the harder foam. Your foam costs will be about $20 per small unit assuming a production run of 1,000 units.
Labor and assembly goes at $25/hr in the intermountain west or the south east including taxes. If you do series production, it takes about 2 man hours to build and assemble one pad. If you do them without series production capabilities, it's more like 5 hours, plus a ton of wasted fabric.
The cheapest fabric costs $4 or so a yard, and you use about 2.75 yards for the smallest pad you can buy. The most expensive fabric used in making pads costs $9 or so a yard.
Let's assume that your advertising, marketing, insurance, and office space represent 15% of your wholesale.
So you've got about the following: $20+$50+12=68 + office costs= $78.20 is your cost you're trying to retail for between $100 and $140. What's in it for the retailer at this point?
but wait a second!
As it turns out, you never had that foam SHIPPED to you! All you did was buy it! Well, it turns out that it's going to cost a decent sum of money to ship the container and a half to your factory with all that foam. Then you have to ship the pads to stores, customers and the rest of it...(it can easily end up costing $5 to 15 per pad for shipping the materials to the factory.)
The solution, of course, is to manufacture the empty pads in China, ship them to your factory and put the foam in them there. You'll save half your labor costs right there, but then have to pay for shipping and customs. Of course, the exact same $9 fabric in China is $0.75, but hey...
But nobody's getting rich off of these things man...
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stonefoxgirl
Nov 23, 2005, 6:07 PM
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I don't think I would question the price of something that is supposed to keep you safe. Did you ask the same question to Petzl after making the GriGri or BD after you purchased a set of cams? Harness, Biner, etc? Yeah, it's kinda an expensive sport, but most sports are??? If the price is going to be the difference between you having a crash pad or not having one I might re evaluate your reasons for bouldering.
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notch
Nov 23, 2005, 6:09 PM
Post #36 of 48
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Crackers brings up another interesting point. Shipping on these things is phenomenally expensive. $5 is probably way low, I would guess closer to $10.
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crackers
Nov 23, 2005, 6:12 PM
Post #37 of 48
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In reply to: Crackers brings up another interesting point. Shipping on these things is phenomenally expensive. $5 is probably way low, I would guess closer to $10.
That $5 is just to ship the foam to the place you cut it up and assemble the bags. Its an accurate estimate.
Ground shipping with UPS is probably in the $13 neighborhood PER PAD, plus about $1.25 for the custom made box.
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nrgroscoe
Nov 23, 2005, 7:14 PM
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Ok here's the deal.
Crash pads cost so much because foam, and most everything else (ballistics nylon) is a petrolium product. Oil cost is out of control. This effects everything.
first you have to buy the raw goods and have it shipped to you. then you build the product and pay for labor (us mostly), then ship it to your dealer and hope you get a decent margin out of it to (keep the lights on, pay your employees, eat and raise a family..). then they put in their margin (yes capitalism, not communism) and sell it to you.
MY POINT: if you like bouldering and want to stay out of the hospital buy a good pad from someone who still builds them in the US and keep supporting capitalism. If not build your own or move to china........
And realize most climbing companies build products because they are users and want to make something quality. Not to rip you off or make up for lost harness sales. And for every item you buy online you take away from your local retailer who has a passion for the outdoors and wants to make a simple living on the sports that get them psyched...
so quit yer bitchin and just climb.........................
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feanor007
Nov 23, 2005, 7:36 PM
Post #41 of 48
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In reply to: hmm... my memory reaches back even to the Elder Days. Earendil was my sire, who was born in Gondolin ere its fall...many defeats, many fruitless victories...
Amazing
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petsfed
Nov 23, 2005, 9:13 PM
Post #42 of 48
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And this can't be stressed enough, nobody gets rich in the niche sections of the outdoor industry. BD stays afloat for one reason and one reason only: skis. Petzl stays afloat because they have a huge market in industry. Likewise with OP, Yates, several others. Climbing is not profitable, not when you look at other cash cows. So bitch all you want about prices, you're getting the best deal going (excluding pro-deals and theft).
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bvb
Nov 23, 2005, 9:26 PM
Post #43 of 48
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i can answer this question. the infamous "homo joe", low-key hanger-on wanna be from the mid-80's josh scene who later went on to actually become a strong climber, developed a fetish for spanish limestone (forgivable, i suppose), and who has some ok archival photos documenting the eastside scene in the early 90's.
although his habit of trolling boulderers has lost it's edge, it never fails to hook some unsuspecting n00b.
btw, i've got 36 years in at the crags as of last october, and 30 years since my first 5.12 this month. bow down, before the one you serve.
pffft.
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notch
Nov 23, 2005, 10:20 PM
Post #44 of 48
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In reply to: Ok here's the deal. Crash pads cost so much because foam, and most everything else (ballistics nylon) is a petrolium product. Oil cost is out of control. This effects everything.
Sorry nrgrosco, I agree with most of the post, but I can't buy the above. Grossly inflated petroleum costs is more of a localized (US) issue, although continued demand from China, India, etc. have edged petrol prices ever higher. Higher petroleum costs should have an effect on future products, but haven't caused the aforementioned high prices to date.
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chugach001
Nov 23, 2005, 11:43 PM
Post #45 of 48
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I know you may be looking for purely emotional responses but here's the math with nearly everything you buy that is not a pure commodity...
With most products sold through specialty retail shops:
If it costs $100 at Retail then the Wholesale price is $50 which means the Mfg. made it for $25 with about $12 in materials and labor. Figure 25% labor which means about $8 in materials.
As manfacturing goes overseas, the US manufacturer is now a distributor and still bought it (landed it) for about $25 but the Chinese had only about $10-$12 in it which means that there is maybe $7-$8 in materials and labor in the product. Figure 5%-10% labor which again puts your material costs solidly around $7. The Chinese are more efficient and have very little S&M (sales and marketing) or G&A (General and Administrative) costs, so there mark-up is not as great.
So materials for this product in US or China are around 7% of what you buy. That's the downside. The upside is that the US has the world's most efficient distribution system and that 93% is actually pretty low compared to other countries (exchange rates being equalized).
Crash Pads are also made of foam, fabric, and thread. All of those are petroleum byproducts and oil costs have increase nearly 3X in the last several years. Some byproducts have increased even more as production has been constrained. All the transport costs have increased as well.
Chinese machinery costs the same as US machinery so the only real savings is Chinese labor which pays about $0.50/hour. That is increasing rapidly as well as we (US Consumers) put more constraints on their ability to make a living. Unlike us, Chinese are limited to the hours they can work per week. They cannot get two 40-hour jobs to get ahead as many in the US do but are limited by the government to around (from memory)45 hours per week. This is driven by two things; (1) The Chinese desire to provide work to all citizens - remember, they are still Communist and (2) our guilt-ridden meddling in trying to keep Chinese from working too many hours. The big US companies like Wal*Mart are driving this policy due to political pressure. These policies affect all Chinese production and set the standard.
Less hours worked means higher wages. At the same time, the Chinese are becoming corrupted by US Materialism and are told that they want to spend more free time sipping Pepsi and talking on their cell phone. So now they are pissing away more money, saving less and working less. This drives your costs up but also increases your Pepsi stock value.
So, with the world's cheapest skilled labor combined with the world's most efficient distribution system, you can expect a 10X mark-up on materials and labor for nearly every thing you buy at retail. AND, no one is making a big profit on this. Everyone involved averages around 10% net profit. This is only slightly more than double what you can get in a bomb-proof investment like a government bond. So, if you have $1mm you can play it safe and earn maybe $50k per year or risk it all for $100k per year. In the final analysis, most entrepreneurs don't do this math, fall in love with the high-end possibilities, risk their homes and their kid's college funds only to make (at most) double what is a guaranteed return. Thank God entrepreneurs like me aren't that smart and we risk it all. The only real guarantee is that the consumer gets the best value possible. Remember, Capitalism favors the consumer first and foremost, everyone else is playing the odds on a future payday but the consumer ALWAYS wins.
So that's why your crash pad costs so much. Econ 101 baby.
Jeff
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arostecrux
Nov 24, 2005, 12:46 AM
Post #46 of 48
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In reply to: Honestly, crash pads dont do much for your ankles...in fact often they cause more injury..
OF COURSE!!! Crash pads mean you get hurt more! The secret is out! GO warn the village!...PSshhhhh...don't be a fool.
Anyone who thinks crash pads "cause more injury" please just donate your pads to the poor cheap bastards here that complain that $175 is just too expensive. Christ, ONE cam can cost 50 to 100 bucks. Quite whinnig about prices, and get a job or something. Or MAKE YOUR OWN PAD. Otherwise, keep your sniviling complaints to yourselves...HAHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHA
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avk
Nov 24, 2005, 1:22 AM
Post #47 of 48
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I haven't read the whole thread so excuse me if somebody else gave the same answer. My boyfriend makes crash pads. He used to sell them on the side as a hobby/side job but it takes too much of his time. he has another full time job so he only makes it once in awhile now.
Yes, it is expensive for him to make. The foam alone cost him $75, then the material, sewing. Of course, it is probably cheaper for a bigger company since they may get a discount on large orders.
so the choice is make it yourself or pay the price :-).
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dynoclimber
Nov 24, 2005, 3:45 AM
Post #48 of 48
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Registered: Nov 26, 2003
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I love how all you idiots are calling boulderers "fake climbers" Everybody who climbs is a climber. Its illogical to say that they aren't. Just because you cant send that route that a 15 year old flashed doesn't make you a fake climber. It just annoys you, which makes you angry, which makes you think of reasons that you are better than them, for validation, and the only thing you can come up with is that you spent more money on a rack than they did. Expensive gear makes you a good climber right?
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