Originally Posted by
zonatandem
Amazingly with the super low labor costs in mainland China you'd think that those big brand name bikes would sell for less.
Supposedly C'dale's cost $35 an hour to manufacture in Pennsylvania and much less than $10 an hour in some China factories. Profit driven???
First, we no longer live in the medieval era. The price is whatever a buyer will pay. The only relation it has to the cost of production is if your competitor can convince the public they are making something equally desirable and they can make it for less they can price below you, and force you to drive your price down.
But even without that aspect, a difference of $25 per hour is spread over how many hours? With properly set up equipment I can't believe mass-produced frames take even close to a day of human time each. And then it's shipped with most but not all of the componentry installed, which really doesn't take long when done on a production line. At some point the cost gets dominated by materials, parts and shipping, and then no amount of reduction in labour price matters.