Price of climbing shoes

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 simondgee 22 Jul 2020

I was persusing, in a nerdy clilmbing porn kind of way, the range of boots that a manufacturer offers and its pricing. What is the biggest factor that differentiates a £140 pair from £100 from £70. There are obvious construction details with heel cup rands and asymetric lasts and different rubbers etc. However the pricing seems to be disproportionate. Is it that some are entirely machine made and others entirely hand made or is it 'what the market will bear'. The cost differentials on rubber (given how much is used seems to be nominally different judging from resoling costs. Is it a higher R & D cost for shorter product lifecycle for the high end puppies?
Thoughts?

In reply to simondgee:

Loads of factors go into the pricing, namely;

  • Where is it made, the handmade shoes are going to be more expensive 
  • Materials and where they're sourced from
  • The license to use particular rubber, for instance Vibram, only La Sportiva and Scarpa has the license for XS Grip 2 and Xs Edge 2, everyone else uses 1.
  • Some companies handmake their top end shoes in the country of origin and their beginner shoes in the far East to balance the costs etc.

Nerd over. 

In reply to simondgee:

Generally cheap shoes are just a velcro sock glued onto a sheet of rubber and a plastic midsole (obviously I'm oversimplifying it). Expensive shoes will be carefully tensioned, have split soles, more complex midsoles, higher end fabrics, and more intensive r&d. All these extras may be useless if you don't need them for your style of climbing, or your grade, though. 

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 bouldery bits 22 Jul 2020
In reply to Euan McKendrick:

Good answer here.

Also volume of sales. A top end, mega specific, super super assymetric, downturned send weapon may not be purchased widely and development costs etc still need to be justified.

I like Moccs.

Post edited at 22:41
In reply to bouldery bits:

Except for Solutions which are probably the most worn high end shoe in the world and still 150 squid!!

 thepodge 23 Jul 2020
In reply to simondgee:

Perceived market value. Very little is priced on how much itcit to make, it'll be priced close to the maximum they believe the customer will pay regardless of it being a £70 or £170 shoe. 

There are huge businesses out there doing market research on this kind of thing. By mistake I needed up at a talk by a company brought in to price VW / Skoda / Seat cars,  a lot of them are the same basic product but with a different shell, obviously there's very little difference in cost between body panels but they get to charge more for the VW brand because people are happy to pay it. 

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 AlanLittle 23 Jul 2020
In reply to thepodge:

I think you're right in the case of VAG - by some measures the biggest company in the world, or so I recall reading recently - but mistaken in the case of La Sportiva who are very much not a huge business.

You can't seriously argue that there's no significant different in cost between a complicated design handmade in Italy (e.g. Solutions, Testarossas) and a simpler design made in a factory in Vietnam (Tarantula). The latter use cheaper rubber too but that probably accounts for less of the difference.

In reply to Euan McKendrick:

> Except for Solutions which are probably the most worn high end shoe in the world and still 150 squid!!


They were over £100 when first launched, around 15 years ago, which made them huge outliers in terms of price (at the time, other performance shoes were around £80).  Now they are no more expensive than other performance shoes - so their price has probably suffered the least inflation of any model.

 timparkin 23 Jul 2020
In reply to simondgee:

> I was persusing, in a nerdy clilmbing porn kind of way, the range of boots that a manufacturer offers and its pricing. What is the biggest factor that differentiates a £140 pair from £100 from £70.

It's worth bearing in mind how that pricing difference actually works in reality. 

Let's say product A is your low quality product and product B your high quality one. 

There's a minimum production for product A which might be £20. This is the absolute minimum they can get too. Half of this may be fixed costs and half material costs. Hence material may be £10

Product B spends £30 on materials instead and hence the production cost might be £40. 

When you then add distribution costs, marketing costs etc, the products might only have £40 difference in final retail price, with B being 30% more than A. However product B has 300% more cost of materials and probably manufacture. 

Hence a 50% increase over the cheapest possible product  might be a 400% increase in material and production costs. 

This is a generalisation and may not be specific to climbing but what it normally means is that the mid to high cost products are substantially more quality than the price difference implies. 

This will be multi component manufacture, layered parts that need hand fitting and tensioning, higher quality components that don't stretch/deform as much, better rubber, etc. 

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 charliesdad 23 Jul 2020
In reply to timparkin:

It would be interesting to hear from someone who's actually worked in the industry, as I suspect the material costs are even lower than you suggest, and the differences in labour costs between hand-made as opposed to machine made shoes are also very modest - put simply, there's no such thing as a hand-made climbing shoe, and even machine made shoes will require a fair bit of human intervention, because the volumes don't allow for lots of automation.

The real drivers of price are not the cost of the shoe, but marketing decisions.

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 thepodge 23 Jul 2020
In reply to AlanLittle:

I'm not saying there's no significant difference, I'm saying people wouldn't pay £130 for a Tarantula and if the Solutions were £60 they would be vastly under priced. 

Doesn't matter what the size of the company is. Builders tea in the greasy spoon near our northern office has approximately the same component cost as the stuff in the one by our southern office yet some how its sold for much more in the south. In both instances the sale price is about the going rate in the local area. You can argue cost of living etc but I doubt Brian and his southern counterpart Doris have analysed the costs too closely, they've just worked out what their customers are happy to pay.

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 wbo2 23 Jul 2020
In reply to simondgee:  If you go on youtube there are some nice videos showing how Scarpa make the furia air and the mago.  Yes, they're advertising, but the amount of work and gluing is quite considerable, and I suspect starts to add up compared to a very basic shoe, or indeed a running show, or  lot of other shoes as well

 They also need to pay a decent wage, and ditto shops need to make a profit. 

 jimtitt 23 Jul 2020
In reply to timparkin:

> It's worth bearing in mind how that pricing difference actually works in reality. 

> Let's say product A is your low quality product and product B your high quality one. 

> There's a minimum production for product A which might be £20. This is the absolute minimum they can get too. Half of this may be fixed costs and half material costs. Hence material may be £10

> Product B spends £30 on materials instead and hence the production cost might be £40. 

> When you then add distribution costs, marketing costs etc, the products might only have £40 difference in final retail price, with B being 30% more than A. However product B has 300% more cost of materials and probably manufacture. 

> Hence a 50% increase over the cheapest possible product  might be a 400% increase in material and production costs. 

> This is a generalisation and may not be specific to climbing but what it normally means is that the mid to high cost products are substantially more quality than the price difference implies. 

> This will be multi component manufacture, layered parts that need hand fitting and tensioning, higher quality components that don't stretch/deform as much, better rubber, etc. 


Eh? The way manufacturing, marketing, sales (and tax) generally work is in multiples, a €10 product costs say €50 in the shops, a €20 product costs €100 and if it's a high-end item then probably €150.

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In reply to simondgee:

Price elasticity of demand determines market price. Market experience and intelligence determines the price point just below where demand would start to fall. It’s Also possible to push past this point depending on the gradient of the relationship until price increase reduces revenue. As soon as you’re operating above a certain margin, then production costs are irrelevant. 
The widening of participation has brought in a constituency which, for example, is used to paying £150 for a pair of trainers, which has skewed the elasticity of the market. If the entire constituency was UKC, they wouldn’t be selling climbing shoes for more than £30 😂

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In reply to charliesdad:

Working in the industry I can tell you that the materials aren't cheap. Especially rubber if you want to use Vibram due to licensing an how it's actually bought.

Once you get all the materials in the factory you then have to make all the individual parts of the shoes which are then put together by hand.

Factor in 11 different models which all require the same attention, standard seasonal price inflation, shipping costs and staff wages and the price does all add up!

 Arms Cliff 23 Jul 2020
In reply to charliesdad:

> the differences in labour costs between hand-made as opposed to machine made shoes are also very modest - put simply, there's no such thing as a hand-made climbing shoe, and even machine made shoes will require a fair bit of human intervention, because the volumes don't allow for lots of automation.

difference in labour costs are going to be substantial just due to hourly rates if one shoe is made in SE Asia and the other shoe is made in the US or Italy (UP, Scarpa, Sportiva). There’s also going to be a large difference in time per shoe for a v simple flat board lasted shoe vs something downturned and tensioned. 

 TobyA 23 Jul 2020
In reply to simondgee:

We are in the early stages of a group review for UKC of "beginner/all-day comfort" climbing shoes. I've done a bit over 50 routes in the last few weeks in a pair of shoes that seem to have an RRP of maybe 70 quid, but appear on Google shopping to be available for less than 60 quid! They are super comfy, have got me up 6a sport routes and HVS grit slabs, but - best of all - they cost about 60 quid!!! How good is that?  I think I'm going to test a second pair for the review as well - they have an RRP of 75 quid and have soles made of a famously sticky brand. Haven't tried them yet so can't say anything about them, but it did make me wonder about whether the type of rubber can really add that much to the cost of the shoe?

OP simondgee 23 Jul 2020
In reply to thepodge:

Yeah I go with 'what the market will bear' pricing as a opposed to cost up as being the biggest determinent. 
I think the cost of materials and labour thing is marginal .. A quick look at a few pricelists and resoles of climbing shoes are all pretty much the same price ~£45 regardless of rubber brand used and somewhat surprisingly cost less than resoling 'fashion' shoes ~£55.  The cost is all in the 'business' which for shoes repairs is in reality labour and premises. 
Marketing cost would be very low on low end shoes I guess given they are sold on price (stack em high sell em cheap~ish) so I can see these supporting lower margins. 
Overall my guess, as Paul, suggests boots regardless of where and how they are made, is that they are all probably made for between £10-£30 (that's COG i.e. Materials+Labour) but the sweet spot of pricing is down to our behaviour. Like cycling we are quite happy to pay a premium for marginal gains (be they real or psychological) and a bit of 'look' which ultimately is marketing overhead.

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 thepodge 23 Jul 2020
In reply to simondgee:

It wouldn't surprise me if budget shoes are priced low in an effort to get first time buyers through the door and similar it wouldn't surprise me if budget shoes are financially worth more (due to volume of sales) than premium shoes.

 chris_r 23 Jul 2020
In reply to simondgee:

The colour. I'm always suckered into paying £20 extra for something that looks cool. And matches my harness.

 Ramon Marin 23 Jul 2020
In reply to simondgee:

Working in design myself I would assume it would be the cost of man hours of design intensive bits, like the P3 platforms, the new Sportiva heels, no-egde... Whereas if you use already tested technology is so much cheaper. That doesn't explain why anazasis are so expensive for a 20 yo shoe mind... or Miuras for that matter

 timparkin 23 Jul 2020
In reply to jimtitt:

> Eh? The way manufacturing, marketing, sales (and tax) generally work is in multiples, a €10 product costs say €50 in the shops, a €20 product costs €100 and if it's a high-end item then probably €150.

It depends on what line of manufacturing you’re in. Might be true with some products but not with others (compare wine, books, computers and you’ll have different contributions from different sectors of markup. Tax and retailer percentage is mostly prorate but distribution and advertising might be fixed. Transport and storage don’t change for instance, likely tooling is different as well)

p.s. I should have made clear my comments are mostly about the step fro, the cheapest to mid priced units. The step fro, mid priced to top price doesn’t get you the same level of improvement 

p.p.s. A different way of explaining is that when you’re trying to make your cheapest pair as a manufacturer, the only way of really cutting costs is to work on ingredients and speed of manufacturer as most of the rest of the costs are fixed (before tax, etc is applied)

Post edited at 17:34
 airborne 23 Jul 2020
In reply to charliesdad:

I'm afraid you're very wrong. At La Sportiva manufacturing in Italy, in the course of making one pair of technical shoes they pass through 33 pairs of hands. It's very labour intensive and skilful; hence the higher costs.

 wbo2 23 Jul 2020
In reply to airborne: Yes, my impression from some of these answers is that people haven't bothered to educate themselves as to how much labour/time is involved...

youtube.com/watch?v=HpL0VWXQoCw&   think this is for the furia air

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 Andy Hardy 23 Jul 2020
In reply to simondgee:

I remember paying £70 for Boreal Fire Kats in 1986, which according to the bank of England calculator should be north of £200 today.

So the question ought to be why are they so cheap?

OP simondgee 23 Jul 2020
In reply to Andy Hardy:

Pretty sure I paid under £30 for Fire in 1984 (I know cos it was my parents contribution to my student grant and I had to keep it secret)... [edit: bought 3rd March 1984 1st route I did in the 3ps]§Someone with back issues of High could verify the price back then... They had zero design but it made boreal

Post edited at 22:28

to try to In reply to Andy Hardy:

As above, re Solutions being over £100, 15 years ago,  when other performance shoes were around £80, and inflating in price relatively little since.  I recall buying frankly terrible Boreal "beginners" shoes in the early 2000s that cost £60-70.... they would probably cost less now.  I suspect the cost of performance models, at least those made in Europe by Scarpa and Sportiva, has been kept down to try to maintain market position.  I reckon with Brexit they will only get much more expensive too.


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