Originally Posted by
mconlonx
I would be. And I work as a production buyer. But figure in all the other costs vs. the actual material cost and plant time for manufacturing only the helmet and then the actual helmet manufacture becomes a very small percentage of the overall cost: Packaging, assembly, shipping, warehousing, misc. overhead. And then you get into distribution which adds more shipping, warehousing, and overhead, on top of distributor markup. Same thing at a shop. Once it hits shop shelves, divide retail price by 10 to get a rough idea of total manufacturing costs -- that $50 helmet probably cost the helmet manufacturer $5 fresh off the manufacturing line, without shipping.
Just to manufacture it? About $1.50/lb or less I would guess for polystyrene. It doesn't cost any more to manufacture a $50 helmet at a bike shop than it does to manufacture a $15 helmet at Walmart.
My guestimate is based on US manufacturing and polypropylene or polyethylene manufacturing as that is what I work with. I don't do polystyrene, but it would cost less than half what EPP or EPE does.