4 ms·

It could be the lack of a mid-range is more of a consequence of people not having any expendable income after rent, bills, health care, child care, etc., than a

by tboyd47 10y ago

It could be the lack of a mid-range is more of a consequence of people not having any expendable income after rent, bills, health care, child care, etc., than an essential feature of capitalism. If I had a bigger budget for personal items, I would pay $60 or more for a really nice, durable, comfortable pair of jeans, as opposed to just going to Walmart and buying the same crappy pair for $19.99 every month or so. Same goes for most things I buy, like cars, furniture, food, etc. But somehow, my rent, bills, health care costs, food costs, etc. just keep getting higher while my monthly income remains roughly constant. So I keep buying trash. Also, the ever-rising high-end of the market gets lifted up partially by easy access to credit. If fewer people had access to credit cards, maybe those high-end products would gravitate more towards the mid-range as well.

ashark 10y ago
I really think it's the education issue. To be able to buy confidently in the mid-range without regulatory protections ensuring that things cannot be under mid-range (talking quality-wise) you have to know a lot. To do that for a substantial fraction of what you buy you have to practically be an expert at buying, with lots of knowledge and adept at spotting scammers. Ain't no-one got time for that (unless that actually is their job). The quality bathtub graph falls out of that. Not enough confident mid-range buyers to pay 10x the crap price, so you never get to a scale where you can (and/or are forced to by competition) drop to 4-5x the crap price (multipliers pulled from thin air, obviously, and are just representative of some real values). [EDIT] in fact, to take your example, you may need to know at least a little about jeans to be sure the $60 jeans will last at least 3x as long as the $20 ones, and with more knowledge and time shopping you might be able to find a $40 pair that'd last even longer than the $60 ones. The fact that the $60 pair might still be crap is the real problem.
dublinben 10y ago
You may be exaggerating, but if you really are buying $20 jeans every month I think you've fallen into the trap of cheap boots that Vimes described. A decent pair of jeans may cost several times more, but will last you for years.
- Arizhel 10y ago
  It's weird; I buy $30 Lee jeans from Kohls these days and they easily last a year or more. Clothing is not something you have to spend a lot of money on to get something that lasts a reasonable length of time, unless you're really being penny-wise-pound-foolish by buying the very cheapest thing you can get just to save 10%, or you're extremely hard on them.
  - tboyd47 10y ago
    Thanks, I'll check out Kohl's next time. Honestly clothes shopping is not something I put a lot of thought into.
    - Arizhel 10y ago
      If you shop Kohl's make sure to use coupons. If you pay full price there for anything, you're paying too much. They always have some kind of deals, and you can usually "stack" them. So jeans for instance will frequently be something like "buy 1, get 1 half-price". Then, you can combine that with a 15% or 20% off coupon, which they run almost every weekend. You can get those on their website, or on printable-coupons.blogspot.com, and just show that cashier on your phone at checkout. So, two pairs of $48 jeans will cost you $57.60 (after 20% coupon), or $28.80 each. Personally, I like Lee these days. They're good quality, not as expensive as Levi's, and not as crappy as the off-brand stuff, and seem to fit pretty well.
  - cr0sh 10y ago
    I've got jeans from wrangler and levis that are easily well over 3 years old. Most of them I purchased from Goodwill. A couple of pairs from Amazon. Currently, I am also trying out a couple of pairs of tactical pants made by LA Police Gear - they were fairly cheap ($30.00 a pair), but seem to be pretty good quality. I only wear them for hiking, and so far for the past 6 months they've held up well. They aren't exactly "stylish" though.
marcosdumay 10y ago
You know, replacing $20 stuff that wears out in a month for $60 stuff that last may be a great use of a credit card.

by tboyd47 10y ago

ashark 10y ago

I really think it's the education issue. To be able to buy confidently in the mid-range without regulatory protections ensuring that things cannot be under mid-range (talking quality-wise) you have to know a lot. To do that for a substantial fraction of what you buy you have to practically be an expert at buying, with lots of knowledge and adept at spotting scammers. Ain't no-one got time for that (unless that actually is their job). The quality bathtub graph falls out of that. Not enough confident mid-range buyers to pay 10x the crap price, so you never get to a scale where you can (and/or are forced to by competition) drop to 4-5x the crap price (multipliers pulled from thin air, obviously, and are just representative of some real values). [EDIT] in fact, to take your example, you may need to know at least a little about jeans to be sure the $60 jeans will last at least 3x as long as the $20 ones, and with more knowledge and time shopping you might be able to find a $40 pair that'd last even longer than the $60 ones. The fact that the $60 pair might still be crap is the real problem.

dublinben 10y ago

You may be exaggerating, but if you really are buying $20 jeans every month I think you've fallen into the trap of cheap boots that Vimes described. A decent pair of jeans may cost several times more, but will last you for years.

Arizhel 10y ago
It's weird; I buy $30 Lee jeans from Kohls these days and they easily last a year or more. Clothing is not something you have to spend a lot of money on to get something that lasts a reasonable length of time, unless you're really being penny-wise-pound-foolish by buying the very cheapest thing you can get just to save 10%, or you're extremely hard on them.
- tboyd47 10y ago
  Thanks, I'll check out Kohl's next time. Honestly clothes shopping is not something I put a lot of thought into.
  - Arizhel 10y ago
    If you shop Kohl's make sure to use coupons. If you pay full price there for anything, you're paying too much. They always have some kind of deals, and you can usually "stack" them. So jeans for instance will frequently be something like "buy 1, get 1 half-price". Then, you can combine that with a 15% or 20% off coupon, which they run almost every weekend. You can get those on their website, or on printable-coupons.blogspot.com, and just show that cashier on your phone at checkout. So, two pairs of $48 jeans will cost you $57.60 (after 20% coupon), or $28.80 each. Personally, I like Lee these days. They're good quality, not as expensive as Levi's, and not as crappy as the off-brand stuff, and seem to fit pretty well.
- cr0sh 10y ago
  I've got jeans from wrangler and levis that are easily well over 3 years old. Most of them I purchased from Goodwill. A couple of pairs from Amazon. Currently, I am also trying out a couple of pairs of tactical pants made by LA Police Gear - they were fairly cheap ($30.00 a pair), but seem to be pretty good quality. I only wear them for hiking, and so far for the past 6 months they've held up well. They aren't exactly "stylish" though.

marcosdumay 10y ago

You know, replacing $20 stuff that wears out in a month for $60 stuff that last may be a great use of a credit card.