I wonder if it's the same or similar with music making products or especially with this unbelievable amount of guitar effect pedals.
“Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting
141–150 of 338 posts
Re: “Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting
#142> The cost of building a consumer audio product is generally no more than 30% of retail. 30% COGS (cost of goods sold) is virtually a maximum for items sold at mainstream retailers. There’s nothing wrong with this. These are standard ratios, not some dirty secret. The cost of goods sold is only a fraction of the costs that go into getting products all the way into the customers’ hands and supporting them (customer su…
Definitely agree. People who rail against this don't understand economics much further than my mom sold yard bird eggs for less than the corner store --corner stores are opportunist capitalists with no heart who take advantage of people. If they had to sustain a business I'm afraid they could not. Every wannabe post-capital economist should try to run a restaurant (profitably).
In your restaurant experiment, are we allowed to use robots to make and sell food to the customer? Or will they walk out?
Re: “Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting
#143The world of consumer audio makes very little sense. The beats headphone mentioned is often poo poo'd by anyone interested in sound reproduction, they are very over priced, but most people don't pay for the technical reproduction its the brand they want, and the belief that because its expensive its better.
It used to be that more expensive was better, but that has decoupled now with many products, now it's a lot of marketing you're paying for.
Sound is one of those things that used to be you'd pay more and get better stuff - in the days of record players and onkyo amps. Now you can get a class D amp for peanuts that's as good as anything else on the market, all sound is digital so there is no real need to spend more. The only thing where you can spend more on is speakers, there's still some engineering there. The world of audiophiles and golden ears is a crazy place, where you can spend as much money as you want on things that don't make a difference.
Re: “Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
Definitely agree. People who rail against this don't understand economics much further than my mom sold yard bird eggs for less than the corner store --corner stores are opportunist capitalists with no heart who take advantage of people. If they had to sustain a business I'm afraid they could not. Every wannabe post-capital economist should try to run a restaurant (profitably).
In your restaurant experiment, are we allowed to use robots to make and sell food to the customer? Or will they walk out?
Yes, please! Anyone who hasn't run a business should definitely try to run one with Robots to appreciate that human factor isn't going anywhere.
Re: “Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
Definitely agree. People who rail against this don't understand economics much further than my mom sold yard bird eggs for less than the corner store --corner stores are opportunist capitalists with no heart who take advantage of people. If they had to sustain a business I'm afraid they could not. Every wannabe post-capital economist should try to run a restaurant (profitably).
In your restaurant experiment, are we allowed to use robots to make and sell food to the customer? Or will they walk out?
Doesn’t matter. Make food people want to go in enjoy and pay for, pay the bills (ingredients, rent, insurance, marketing, labor, management, equipment, etc.) and remain profitable. No dipping into moms coffers.
That’ll put an end to “I can make myself a Reuben with store bought stuff for $3!!!, $13 at the deli is goddamned capitalist pig ripoff”
Re: “Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Shit HN says. Sheesh Indeed. I read the article, then I read these three comments. The first one reiterates points that the article made but seemingly doesn’t recognize the article made them. The second does recognize that but with a combative tone. The third is just combative. Y’all can carry on as usual but none of that conflict was actually warranted.
The third comment parodied the second word for word before the second was edited :-)
I don’t think that reflects better on the third comment :)
Re: “Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting
#147Years ago I visited a friend in emmm..., "Europe". He was not home and the neighbour let us in. He asked us to entertain ourselves until he gets back. It took little time to notice the pair of speakers: 50cm cubes, almost. I managed to turn them on and connect them to the TV. There I heard the most lifelike sound I ever heard from any speakers. I wondered: these should be some crazy European brand... no brand names anywhere on the boxes.
Later that night I asked about the speakers and he went: "What? They sound good?"
It turns out his friend works at "Insert big European brand, not only audio here" and they decided to make a great pair of speakers. Then he brings home a measurement device north of 6 figure €s, and they tune it so that you would not be able to distinguish a person talking behind you, from the recording of them being played with these speakers... Or as close you can get to that.
Then they take their product to the company only to be laughed at: "for anything below 5000€, we don't use any part above 50€. You have parts north of 500, this is not feasible for the market."
Re: “Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cost of Sales is not Cost of Goods Sold
In this accounting context, yes it is edit: source here, since other people are making the same mistake https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/112614/whats-differ...
To be clear, the OP discusses COGS in an electronics/manufacturing context, which refers specifically to the cost of manufacturing the product, and excludes things like marketing, logistics, R&D, salaries etc.
It is not at all comparable to the Xiaomi Cost of Sales figure in GP which includes many things beyond the direct cost of manufacturing their devices.
Re: “Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If this seems shocking, consider that the COGS of software as a service products are much lower by comparison. Doesn’t matter, though, because you have to pay all of those expensive salaries to make it happen. By definition, in a successful business, a significant amount of that markup goes to profit, not anything that's actually productive like salary.
How is profit any less 'productive' than any other expense?
Removing any other expense will be detrimental to the business, that is, make it work less well. Nothing will happen to the business if the owners don't get any dividends.
Re: “Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
How is profit any less 'productive' than any other expense?
Removing any other expense will be detrimental to the business, that is, make it work less well. Nothing will happen to the business if the owners don't get any dividends.
>Removing any other expense will be detrimental to the business, that is, make it work less well. Nothing will happen to the business if the owners don't get any dividends.
I'd say two things.
1. A listed business wouldn't exist in the first place (or in its present form) if owners hadn't been enticed to put up capital in the hope of getting dividends.
2. The purpose of a listed business is to pay the owners, not to produce goods or services - producing goods or services is just a means through which to pay the owners.