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$450 for a School Bag?

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Re: $450 for a School Bag?

#41

Post by kasey_junk »

jerlam wrote: post #27
metadat wrote: post #2

The article tries to articulate the value add through attention to detail in manufacturing "so the bags survive 6 years of rough and tumble ", but I'm not really getting it. What am I missing? I had a $60-in-1995 northface backpack that lasted through hauling 5+ periods of textbooks every day, walking and biking to middle school and highschool. It worked fine, in fact my dad still uses it (30 years later) to hold and…

I'll hazard a guess - Japan is a walking society, and these backpacks are being worn every day, laden with books, back and forth from home to school, or on buses or the subway. Americans generally get driven to school. The backpack is worn only between classes at school and then moved from car trunk to home, not worn during those times. I personally wore out a $100 Eddie Bauer backpack every other year or so during m…

My kid has been using the same $100 bag for his entire school career. He’s in 5th grade and walks to school over a mile 90% of the year. In a northern climate. That bag looks like it will last another 5-10 years.

Frankly, his classmates have cheaper bags with similar outcomes so I doubt price is highly correlated with performance past a certain price point.

Re: $450 for a School Bag?

#42

Post by pjscott »

pfannkuchen wrote: post #9

> After a few rounds of bastardization, ransel became “randoseru” in Japanese. I thought there was actually a formal transliteration system the Japanese use for foreign words? Like with cutlet becoming katsu retsu. Not quite “bastardization”.

I don’t know if there’s a formal method, but there is a method – given an English word, I can almost always figure out how to say it as an English-to-Japanese loanword. Somehow. I think it’s just something that comes naturally once you understand the phonetics?

Re: $450 for a School Bag?

#43

Post by JohnBooty »

guessmyname wrote: post #25
metadat wrote: post #2

The article tries to articulate the value add through attention to detail in manufacturing "so the bags survive 6 years of rough and tumble ", but I'm not really getting it. What am I missing? I had a $60-in-1995 northface backpack that lasted through hauling 5+ periods of textbooks every day, walking and biking to middle school and highschool. It worked fine, in fact my dad still uses it (30 years later) to hold and…

Curious coincidence, I bought a randoseru (ランドセル) [1][2][3] early this morning and complained to my wife all the way to the store. She doesn’t want our children to look different at school. They are already different enough for being hāfu [4] and she doesn’t want to traumatize them even more. The bags are stiff and, in my eyes, quite ugly, and children are supposed to carry several books every day, good exercise but…

This may well be for the best. It's good to fight against bad traditions, but don't use your kids as the battlefield. Being forced by their parents to be "different" can really make a kids' life into hell.

Re: $450 for a School Bag?

#45

Post by kstrauser »

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #36
kstrauser wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not my moral duty to keep the makers of expensive bags employed. I mean, I do that anyway as a hobby, but I don't owe it to anyone.

But maybe the Japanese value some of their traditions and want to keep them alive. There’s nothing wrong with that either.

No, there's nothing wrong with that at all!

However, that works both ways. It's wrong to say someone is "disrespectful" and "misunderstanding quality goods" because they don't want to get their kid a $450 bag instead of a cheaper, still-durable one.

Re: $450 for a School Bag?

#47

Post by JohnBooty »

kasey_junk wrote: post #41
jerlam wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll hazard a guess - Japan is a walking society, and these backpacks are being worn every day, laden with books, back and forth from home to school, or on buses or the subway. Americans generally get driven to school. The backpack is worn only between classes at school and then moved from car trunk to home, not worn during those times. I personally wore out a $100 Eddie Bauer backpack every other year or so during m…

My kid has been using the same $100 bag for his entire school career. He’s in 5th grade and walks to school over a mile 90% of the year. In a northern climate. That bag looks like it will last another 5-10 years. Frankly, his classmates have cheaper bags with similar outcomes so I doubt price is highly correlated with performance past a certain price point.

When I was in school in the 80s-90s I pretty much nevvvverrrr saw kids reusing bags for multiple years.

I think cheap bags were just crappier back then

But even the Jansports seemed to get replaced. I think kids were just rougher on their bags back then. I remember my bags absolutely bulging with 4-5 big hardbound textbooks. Don't see that much any more.

Re: $450 for a School Bag?

#48

Post by kizunajp »

Hello! Author here. Pleasantly surprised to see this on the front page! I thought I'd address a couple of questions here:

- Why is it so expensive?

You can definitely buy cheaper randoserus made in China and these are giving lower-end Japanese manufacturers a run for their money. For example, https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/dp/B09H5RLGQF is around 45 dollars.

Even off-the-shelf Japanese randoserus are cheaper than the customized ones.

For an example of the well-thought out design of randoseru, this video does a good job: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WtWiuWBU9r8

Some basic reasons for the high cost are: materials (leather, fake leather) are expensive, there are many parts, manual assembly, and the variations and customizations don't lend themselves to scale.

This article lists some reasons Japanese randoseru are so expensive: https://rand--torisetu-com.translate.goog/kakaku?_x_tr_sl=au... .

- What happens after 6 years?

Randoseru often last longer with good care, and are in fact passed down. Many organizations also collect and donate used randoseru to the less privileged. There are also businesses that will recycle the high quality materials into other accessories: See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHcgol5i7gs

Re: $450 for a School Bag?

#49

Post by gnicholas »

We needed very durable backpacks when I was in high school because our books were so heavy, and my school had no lockers (so you were carrying 4-5 textbooks at all times). But as students have shifted to online learning platforms, wouldn't they have less of a need for extremely sturdy/roomy backpacks? I recently spoke to a college grad who said that all of his learning in HS was online, meaning he never needed to carry any textbooks. Do they not use online learning materials as much in Japan? Or is this a cultural phenomenon that will change slowly, even though the need has changed?

Re: $450 for a School Bag?

#50

Post by soultrees »

metadat wrote: post #2

The article tries to articulate the value add through attention to detail in manufacturing "so the bags survive 6 years of rough and tumble ", but I'm not really getting it. What am I missing? I had a $60-in-1995 northface backpack that lasted through hauling 5+ periods of textbooks every day, walking and biking to middle school and highschool. It worked fine, in fact my dad still uses it (30 years later) to hold and…

I’m with you on that. I’ve had a north face bag for almost 20 years (and it looks like it!) but it’s still strong as can be.

The unfortunate thing is I was in the market for a new bag and went to the north face store of course and the only bag they had in the whole store was some shoestring style bag. Quite disappointing to see north face forget their roots.

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