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> Today, the waiting list for Mr Deshmukh's pens stretches up to nearly two years. The 10 models come in a range of colours and cost between $70-$160 and > "T
by djrogers 6y ago
> Today, the waiting list for Mr Deshmukh's pens stretches up to nearly two years. The 10 models come in a range of colours and cost between $70-$160
and
> "The last time I looked at his online list, it said my order would be ready in 95 weeks," the Indian-born author, most recently, of Gun Island, told me.
Seems like a pretty big failure on pricing here... Raising prices to reduce wait times will generally make for happier customers and more money. Low prices and scarcity lead to secondary markets and unhappy customers.
- brainless 6y agoThis. This is why I feel modern economic machine has failed us. An artisan is making something and selling at a price they are happy to get as wage. And external people have to now think* how the artisan should be raising prices to make more money. There is no pricing failure. Someone is happy creating their version of art and selling it to run their life and family. They have enough customers to keep working for the next many years. Full stop.
- hikingsimulator 6y agoMaximizing profit is not always the best way to go. Especially in the realm of luxury items. Their elasticity is counter-intuitive with regards to the general idea of supply and demand. That's why you have waiting lists in many luxury industries (think about Tesla too). It's part of the trade.
- djrogers 6y ago> Maximizing profit is not always the best way to go. My comment was not advocating for 'maximizing profit' - secondary markets do not make for happy customers, nor do excessively long wait times. Yes - a waiting list can be part of a luxury good, but there's probably an optimization of customer happiness somewhere shorter than a 2 year wait list. A wait list that excessive can spur a secondary market, which makes the wit list even longer, which makes customers and potential customers that much less happy. And the secondary market only enriches the middle-man, while doing nothing for your loyal fans and customers.
- KorematsuFred 6y ago> Especially in the realm of luxury items. Especially for luxury items, it makes sense to keep the price pretty high and supply limited (like Ferrari). I am from India and $150 is pretty low for the market he is targetting. For example I routinely purchases Moleskin notebooks for around $30 in India and this was not even a rare item. A doctor, a judge can easily afford to pay $500 for these pens.
- chevill 6y ago>For example I routinely purchases Moleskin notebooks for around $30 in India Do you use fountain pens? Moleskin notebooks are amongst the worst paper I have ever used for a fountain pen. Even the finest points I have bleed an absurd amount.
- KorematsuFred 6y agoOh no. Moleskins are pretty bad for fountain pens. I use rollerball jel pens mostly.
- 098799 6y agoSurprisingly accurate. There are dozens of custom fountain pen makers online now, but the wait times only increase from what they used to be a few years ago.
- tyingq 6y agoI imagine he would make out really well with a limited quantity, sky-high priced, "expedite an existing order" button. And it's not too late for that. A small portion of the upcharge would easily fund a lesser skilled helper for non-critical/lesser-skilled tasks, so that existing orders weren't delayed.
- zikzak 6y agohttps://www.becomingminimalist.com/recognizing-happiness/ https://www.becomingminimalist.com/recognizing-happiness/
- tyingq 6y agoSure, though it wasn't a suggestion he had to do that. Just that an opportunity was there. Also, I just noticed on his website that he is already looking to hire some help: http://fosforpen.blogspot.com/2021/02/i-am-hiring.html http://fosforpen.blogspot.com/2021/02/i-am-hiring.html
- zwieback 6y agoI read the fabulous "Clapton's Guitar" a few years back and I think a lot of the fun of it is that not everyone follows the economically logical rule of adjusting the prices like that.
- pradn 6y agoMaybe he wants to ensure those who love his pens can get them for a reasonable price? There's a democratic quality to waiting. Maximizing profit is only one way to run a business.
- cambalache 6y agoHow will he avoid the secondary market if that his objective? He will be indirectly exploited and 90% of the earnings will be passed to add-nothing intermediates.
- pkd 6y agoMost people on the waiting list for that long are not going to be buying to flip it. It's not like sneaker flash sales which are copped by bots.
- pradn 6y agoHe gets the good will of reasonable prices while keeping the prestige of long wait times, so from a brand perspective, he's still doing well. He can't prevent scalpers right now. But even if he sold to maximize profits today, people in the future, even in his lifetime, can make super profits off even higher prices. This happens to artists whose earlier work sell for millions, while they see no benefit from those sales, except high prices for newly-produced art.
- OldHand2018 6y agoPerhaps the pen maker could raise prices and offer a discount for personalization.
- blueblisters 6y agoHa that's smart but I could see that getting taken advantage of.
- cbm-vic-20 6y agoLet's see what my friend N. Vidia has to say about this.
- LegitShady 6y agoOnce he starts raising the prices more he starts competing with european and japanese high end fountain pen makers and then his quality proposition is a more common characteristic. You're mistaking the market with other firms for a pricing failure of this firm.
- 0xbadcafebee 6y ago> Ghosh is willing to wait for his pen to arrive from the maker I'm a bit flabbergasted how you'd think that a customer willing to wait 95 weeks for a product is proof of a pricing failure. It's proof that price is not a factor.
- nl 6y agoThe implication is that increasing prices might balance supply and demand better and/or increase profit for the manufacturer.
- 0xbadcafebee 6y agoBut the manufacturer is turning a profit and the customer is satisfied. Why fix what ain't broke? Capitalism is so wonky.
- groby_b 6y agoAssuming his business makes enough money to satisfy his needs - there is no personal need to raise prices. Not everything follows a model of optimizing pricing to have a business that "functions better" in some abstract economics sense. There is satisfaction in receiving fair wages for your work. At some price point, it feels like overcharging, even if customers are willing to pay that, and not everybody wants to go down that route. There is satisfaction in working with somebody like that, or buying from them, even if it takes longer.
- rsj_hn 6y agoNot everything needs to follow some moralistic purity test either. Just sell the damn thing at the market clearing price and let other people wring their hands about fairness of the pricing for these luxury pens. Most people do not need to redeem themselves or assess their self-worth via the pricing of luxury goods.
- selestify 6y agoBesides, who gets to decide what a “fair wage” for your work is? If people are willing to pay more for your pens, I say charging them what they’re willing to pay is still pretty fair of you.
- groby_b 6y agoYou're aware that they set a price that they're comfortable with, yes? They chose not to set a market clearing price. It's not about a "purity" test. It's what they choose to do. It's amazing how uncomfortable people get if there are examples of people not wringing every last ounce of profit out of something.
- rsj_hn 6y agoPlease read the post that I was responding to, which insisted on framing everything in terms of some weird definition of luxury-price morality. It's strange how much of a raw nerve is touched when you point out the absurdity of people's various moral crusades. In terms of why the actual vendor is or is not raising prices, I have no idea, neither is it important. I was making a counter argument, not lobbying the vendor. They could charge a million dollars or one dollar for their handcrafted pens and there would be zero moral difference between these two prices.
- chevill 6y agoMost of the custom pen makers I've tried to contact lately had multiple year wait lists. A few years ago it seemed like you could get one made in a a few months. US makers charge $200-500 for fairly standard custom pens and for more specialized stuff the prices can get even higher. The wait lists are still long. Personally as a person with a collection of vintage pens worth several thousand dollars, I wouldn't pay much more than $500 for a new custom fountain pen unless it had a lot of gold or silver hardware / overlay. I have a couple of custom pens. One was about $500, used a rare celluloid material no longer in production, and had sterling silver hardware and an 18k nib. The other one was just as well crafted, but only cost about $225 because it was from someone relatively new to the market and it had steel hardware. I'm sure someone would pay more if the prices went up significantly, but I would either just buy a vintage pen that writes better anyways or I would stop collecting. Also, so far there doesn't seem to be a secondary market for scalping people with custom pens. I dabble in woodworking/woodcarving too though, and there's a lot of people flipping custom carving knives for 3-6x what the makers charge. Its a pretty obnoxious practice.