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How Much Are You Paying For Electronics Labels?
An anonymous reader writes "Interesting article on CNET about different consumer electronics brands selling identical OEM products, often at wildly different price points. The author also examines the phenomenon of manufacturers releasing "consumer" and "industrial" versions of the same product -- with the cheaper version aimed at businesses. Probably old news for the slashdot crowd, but it's worth reading to see how much Middle America is overpaying. Caveat emptor, indeed." And there are also product lines where the expensive version is aimed at business buyers, because a higher price implies greater credibility.
VCRs were one of the first I heard about to do this... one motherboard, vendors enable the features that they want for each model, depending on their marketing strategy.
The poweredge 400sc is the same as their top of the line Dimension model bit in a less flashy case. The Poweredge in a minimum configuration costs about 349$ The Dimension you can't get for cheaper than about $1000. They do the same (or at least did) with their laptops. My Inspiron 4100 has been reflashed (by me) with the Latituce C610 bios so I can use the docking stations (with pci slots). Dells precision line is the same as well. Their precision notebooks are latitudes and inspirons but with a FireGL or Quadro card (which you can order separately from dell and stick in your laptop yourself) The desktop precision systems are the same as well. Just a Optiplex or Dimension with a good video card.
another big example is Alienware, but its Sager Notebooks who create the laptops for them.
A friend of mine worked in a factory that made liquid soap. She ran a bottling machine. She said there would be batches of hundreds of bottles at a time. Each batch would have a different label, and would sell at a different price in the store. But they were filling them with the same slop from the same tank.
Unknown host pong.
Ever notice that competing businesses often locate next to each other? This is not so much to take business away from the other, but it's been found that the appearance of competition drives sales, so they both get more business than if they located seperately. The ultimate example of this is the shopping mall.
Ever notice "clumps" of shoe stores at the mall? They're often owned by the same company to imply competition between them when there isn't any really.
The implication of competition drives sales so they set up the implication artificially.
Proctor & Gamble are masters of working this, many cleaning products advertised as being better than the other are the same except for their packaging and a difference in the food coloring added, and the same as a bargain brand for a fraction the cost.
And the same as the "house" brand at a fraction of that cost.
KFG
Ever wonder why Radio Smack stopped carying its "Optimous" brand of stereo and AV equiptment? It was all made by RCA. Now, they just cary the RCA brand on the shelves.
Isnt this like the whole "Frosted Mini-Wheats" VS. "Frosted Mini-Spooners" (Brand X) debate? I think a Kroger grocery store billboard in Richmond VA put it best. There is a picture of a field of String Peas plants on a farm. In the middle is a LARGE string pea sliced open. On the left is an arrow pointing to the top pea in the pod which says "National Brand" while the pea in the middle has an arrow on the right pointing to it which says "Kroger Brand".
Not too off-topic: I tried to convince my CIO that we could save money by using 7-Zip instead of licensing Winzip (not at the point to recommend Open Office or Linux yet) and he turned it down because "Winzip is the trusted name in ZIP compression", WTF, its actually PK's format! Dont even get me started on his views of PDFCreator vs. Acrobat.
Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the
They also do this with multiple product numbers/SKUs within the same brand.
Those ads in the sunday paper where they promise to give you the product free/10% cash back/whatever if you find the same product at a competitor for less? They can do this because the manufacturers make essentially identical products but sell them with different model numbers to competing electronics stores -- so the models are unique to the chain carrying them. Usually this is called price protection and it's something the supplier will often guarantee in a specific market.
This stuff doesn't bother me nearly as much as companies that cash in on their brand name with inferior products -- I've had a couple major-label DVD players that barf during playback about 50% of my DVD collection, yet no-name imports (and my PCs) seem to have no problems at all.
Could there still be a difference in build quality if not design? Maybe the high-end brands are getting the A-grade stuff and the low-end brands are selling the borderline-grade stuff that doesn't score as high at quality inspection time, much like how certain CPUs in a wafer will not clock high enough to sell as a high-end CPU, but if you downclock them they'll work fine as a lower-end model.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
In the 80's I worked in a commercial photo finishing lab -- the place your film gets processed when you drop it off at a grocery store.
They charged more to develop ISO 400 film than ISO 100 film. The explanation was that the customers thought that since ISO 400 film was more expensive, it would be harder or more costly to process it.
But the fact was that all C-41 films went through exactlythe same process. In fact, it costs less to process ISO 400, because more silver is recovered for recycling during the process.
So the conclusion is, they charge what people are willing to pay.
These guitars were *exactly* the same from brand to brand, with the exception of colors, and some minor details (shape of pickguard, knobs, pickup covers).
Harmony brand usually sold for more money, followed by Sears and Wards even though the guitars were exactly the same.
When Japanese guitars started showing up for much less, there was much more 'spread' as many of the cheaper models were outsourced overseas. After some time, the industry shook itself out and the cycle began anew.
Now many of the old names are owned by the Japanese, and it is a similar situation.
Maybe the high-end brands are getting the A-grade stuff and the low-end brands are selling the borderline-grade stuff that doesn't score as high at quality inspection time
If they're anything like Sony, they don't inspect their products at all - the build process is so refined that it costs more to inspect the product than it does to deal with returns.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
A friend of mine worked a summer job in a paint factory where they canned spray paint. He loaded labels into the machine. Same cans of paint, it was the labels that determined whether it was a high end brand or some random house brand.
I worked a summer job in a plant that processed and canned pickles. We put sliced pickles in 5 gallon buckets and slapped Burger King, Long John Silvers, Wendy's, etc labels on them. Interestingly, the only one that was different was McDonalds. They had a special recipe for spices, and they were the 800 pound gorilla, so they could make the suppliers make special batches for them.
Many of the above comments are about how brand name companies make the same thing under different names, and sell them for different prices, sometimes with different marketing schemes.
;) ) getting advice to raise their prices- Americans believed that the prices were so low that the quality had to be lower. They rose prices and took in cash.
There's a bunch of marketing stories about how if there are two products, one cheaper, one more expensive, that are about the same, most people will go for the cheaper one. Add a new one more expensive than the top one, however, and the old top (the new middle) dramatically increases in sales.
And there's the story about Taco Bell (a fast food chain here in America, for you barbarians
Most of the time these stories are basically saying "THESE COMPANIES ARE LYING TO US!!!". Some times they are commenting on percieved human stupidity, which is what we call it when an emotional system finely honed for survival in the wild proves mildly susceptible to some new cunning analysis and we don't take the most logical path.
I want to give another point: you are, in some cases, watching the free market help the little guy. This is private industry giving "welfare", a strong discount to those who can't afford the pretty name. Buying batteries and poor? Well, you aren't getting worse batteries, you're just paying less. The only real currency we have is emotion, and we are witnessing poor people "paying" with emotion in comparison with rich people- they can't necessarily get the cool name, and good packaging and the warm feeling it produces. But, they aren't getting screwed with a product that blows up or fails or is just crap!
I used to hate this, but then I realized that if it bugged me so much, I could just buy non brand name products all the time. Or I could just shut up and buy Duracells and help support an industry standard that actually has beneficial side effects to those with less money, without making me feel like it's picking my pocket.
This could be a lot worse. This is in many ways noble.
Interesting how this debate turned around Sony. I kind liked their products back in the "old days". About 3 years ago I sort of fell in love with the bleeding edge top-of-the-line Vaio laptop. That is to this date the worst purchase I have EVER made. I travel quite a lot - in Europe and in the far east. I did in fact buy the laptop in a South-East Asian country - with INTERNATIONAL warrenty and service. Six month later I find myself in Europe - with my Vaio - minus the charger. Called Sony to get a new one only to hear: "Sorry - we don't support that model in Europe at all - you'll have to order a replacement from the country where you bought the laptop".
I simply don't understand any company can survive with that kind of service. Needless to say I will never repeat the mistake of buying a Vaio - EVER.