r/HeresAFunFact • u/OakFace • Apr 16 '21
SOCIETY/CULTURE [HAFF] Bottled water is marked up 4,000%. A $2.00 bottle of water costs the company only about $0.05 to make.
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u/EPKBB207 Apr 19 '21
Bottled water is such a fucking scam! Poland Spring literally uses municipal water supplies and markets it like it's from some remote, beautiful springs.
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u/stylz168 Apr 17 '21
100% on diamonds seems low.
My wife worked in the industry for 10 years, for a wholesaler who sold pieces to Zales, Sterling, etc. The margins were a lot higher for many of the pieces. I bought her custom engagement and wedding set for less than what the big retailers would pay her company for as wholesale price, and they would normally sell for double.
It costs her company 1/3 because they had their own factory that would build the pieces.
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u/I_stole_this_phone May 03 '21
20 years ago the oldest roommate in the house managed a jewelry store. He was way to much fun. He'd bring home a Rolex for a date or some fancy necklace for his date to wear. He had money. He hated the diamond industry. He said they were worth less than dirt and encouraged the rest of us to never ever pay retail for a diamond. Or better yet, dont ever buy one. The mark up was way more than 100%
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Apr 25 '21
Dafuk is a highschool ring
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u/Northman67 Apr 26 '21
It's a piece of gaudy jewelry they try to push on all high school seniors in the United States. There's usually a company called jostens that comes in and distributes a sales pamphlet on it.... I graduated in 1985 so I'm sure things are slightly different now but even back then it was an obvious scam.
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u/Office_Zombie Apr 16 '21
Correct me if I'm wrong, but popcorn is where movie theaters make all their money to stay open. I don't feel so bad about getting gouged by movie theaters.
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u/AL_MI_T_1 Apr 16 '21
Yeah between renting and insurance for just getting the film they only make a few pennies off the ticket price.
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u/ktho64152 Apr 16 '21
Where can you buy the eyeglass frames at cost or reasonably not marked up?
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u/g3n3s1s69 Apr 16 '21
I highly recommend Zenni, but I hear EyeBuyDirect is reasonably good too.
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u/ooftymcgoofty Apr 18 '21
Am I thinking of it wrong, or is the IPhone markup from 500 to 1000+ more like 100%, not 40-65?
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u/Finalpotato Apr 26 '21
That coffee is an outright lie. Unless it is a black coffee with insanely cheap beans.
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u/usernametaken0987 Jun 16 '21
College Textbook: 200%
I remember that scale back in the 80s.
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u/vicarious_111 Jun 17 '21
Saved a lot by shopping on Amazon when they mainly sold books. I feel old 😕
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u/brandnameshawn Apr 20 '21
A lot of breweries in the US have to use 3rd party distributors who, after the initial mark up from the brewery for production costs, also mark up the product a fair amount. the bars also have to mark up a good chunk because alcohol is usually the primary source of income
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u/HopeFox Jun 25 '21
Ah, yes, mattresses. Famously small, portable products that can be sold out of a briefcase and don't need huge showrooms that cost rent and labour.
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u/thedobya Jun 28 '21
Beer is misleading here since the taxes for a restaurant to legally sell it are probably triple the price of the beer itself. In Australia at least!
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u/Raise-Emotional Jul 06 '21
This is REALLY deceptive in spots. Because we are using the cost to produce something from the manufacturer, but pricing in the cost from the retailer. We are forgetting about the entire supply chain and them all having to mark it up as well. Beer distributors for example. A bar usually runs 3x markup on wine, 4x on liquor beer (approx. I know that varies). But you cannot compare the cost of a on premise beer in a restaurant, to the cost of the water and wheat at the brewery.
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Brewery production costs
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Taxes in the state the brewery is in
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Transportation (rail, Semi, or both)
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Taxes again at destination state
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Distributor
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Bar
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Sales Tax
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u/g3n3s1s69 Apr 16 '21
Most of this accurate, but some of it incredibly misleading.
A bottle water does not have cost 5 cents to make. That barely the PET plastic alone. PET resin is 50 cents/lb and a normal 500ml bottle needs 20grams of PET so the plastic alone is about 2 cents a bottle. The remaining margin for manufacturing costs, utilities, logistics, manpower, overhead will increase x10 fold. Still a massive profit margin, but it's not 5 cents a bottle.
Likewise coffee requires indirect and direct operational costs that are more than just making the coffee at home. I had infographic in mind but only found this Starbucks China version https://duckduckgo.com/?q=cost%20of%20coffee&ko=-1&iax=images&ia=images&iai=http%3A%2F%2Fs.wsj.net%2Fpublic%2Fresources%2Fimages%2FOB-YT773_coffee_G_20130904024204.jpg but if you increase labor costs for USA or EU you can easily see why a few cents at home versus $2-5 in a store become more dramatic. Then again, the poster is correct that coffee places like Starbucks increase prices of their vente double caramel unicorn vomit drink to like ~7-9 dollars and increase their profit margin drastically.
I agree with this chart, but some numbers are a bit misrepresented. Also, conversely, I'd expect college textbooks and diamonds to be far higher than they are on the list.