YES!! There is a ton that goes into products that goes well beyond materials. I've seen the BOM + retail argument made many times regarding Apple computers.

YES!! There is a ton that goes into products that goes well beyond materials. I've seen the BOM + retail argument made many times regarding Apple computers. Interestingly, I also hear, "I wish DELLHPLENOVOACER would make a machine that's more like a Mac." And that's what people are paying Apple for!! If DELLHPLENOVOACER were to make a machine more like the Mac, their prices would come up to Apple pricing, and that would happen because delivering a product is more than the BOM materials cost. There is a BOM for hardware and software There is a Bill of Processes And a Bill of Services Often, and should be pretty much always, there is also a Bill of Requirements used for quality and compliance too. Each of these things involves people, who need to get paid so they can continue to exist and show up for work. And they involve processes, materials, information, all of which are required to ship the product as intended. Now, all that said, it's not like the BOM cost markup to retail is wrong. For what I'll call reference, or baseline products, it's often close! Those products are lean and mean, with as few processes and materials and information as possible included. And those products are a good deal for those people who don't need a lot of extras. One example I can think of is the many video signal devices I see on Amazon. Things like VGA to HDMI boxes, for example. I've purchased a few, some being $20 to $30 and others approaching $100. The PCB is almost the same! The cheap ones often leave a feature out, and I can see the components not populated on the PCB. They also come in rock bottom packaging and have plastic cases, connectors that are not reinforced, and on it goes. My more expensive one has a nice metal case, all the features are present, included nice cables, not "will work at least once" cables, was packaged well, and the overall build quality was significantly better. I own an expensive one because the connector work is not good enough on the cheaper ones. I bet the number of BOM items differs by less than 10 percent, yet the product cost difference is 2X plus a little. Quality components vs shoddy ones, or ones that may fail more, or were not quality checked at the source make a big difference in product cost, and that's just one example. This is why Apple computers cost more. Apple simply does not ever ship a rock bottom, stripped down product. Most of the time, they ship exemplary products (in a given product class), and they add a lot of value, and most importantly, they ask that value be funded with purchase price dollars. And in most cases, that value added is reasonable. If it were not, the people would not be buying the products.