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fundamental difference between purses and men's toys
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Date: February 6th, 2007 11:34 PM Author: Learning Disabled School Marketing Idea an expensive tv or car has features whose development required pushing the edges of human knowledge. an example that has become familiar to many is "the mirrors" in DLP TVs. (see TI commercials with xoxo's favorite little girl.) this technology required millions of dollars, many years, and many scientific breakthroughs to develop.
a high-end MB has laser-guided cruise control. a high-end lexus has automatic parallel parking. twenty years ago, high-end vehicles were the first to have airbags. the premiums these vehicles command are due to the safety and performance features they offer. men want these items because they offer quantifiable advantages over cheaper cars.
in the thousands of years since man has tanned animal skins to make bags, has there been a breakthrough in bag design other than the invention of the zipper? |
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Date: February 6th, 2007 11:51 PM Author: Stimulating Theater Stage I'm not reading the whole bag thread but I think this gets at a point that MTG was making. The high-end TV and the luxury car have a lot more "intrinsic" worth based on the capital invested to create the product, whereas luxury bags seem to be mostly based on marking up the price to whatever the desired market will bear.
And I think this is also the reason why I'm not sold on expensive watches. I understand there's a lot of skill and craftsmanship needed to make one of those watches, but that's only because they insist on making them in a certain way. You're basically paying some people a lot of money to come up with the most complicated solution to a very simple problem. |
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Date: February 7th, 2007 12:17 PM Author: Sickened irradiated parlour juggernaut I agree with all of this.
And yes, to prevent accusations of sexism, I would throw high end men's watches into the same category as bags. |
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Date: February 8th, 2007 8:37 AM Author: frum swashbuckling orchestra pit What if it's a watch with lasers, GPS, poison gas lever, and language translator? (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=576294&forum_id=2#7565694) |
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Date: February 8th, 2007 9:31 AM Author: Stimulating Theater Stage If the watch is built with the latest technology and priced accordingly, then it's exactly what we were saying. You may not think it's very practical (most people probably wouldn't), but if you chose to buy it, you would have a quantifiable set of features that you were buying.
The thing with high-end watches is not that they're made with unnecessary features (although they sometimes are), but that they're made in a very specific way that is unnecessarily expensive for the function that they provide. If watchmakers kept the look of their high-end watches and stuck a quartz chip inside, you'd have substantially the same product (possibly better) at a fraction of the price. |
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Date: February 7th, 2007 12:36 PM Author: Gaped Native Telephone i think a more apt comparison is the sports collectibles brought up in the other thread. i think at some level, women think of expensive purses as a stamp collection you can show off walking down the street.
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Date: February 7th, 2007 12:39 PM Author: Ocher Wild Station Reading Party Sports collectibles are dumb. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=576294&forum_id=2#7560377) |
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Date: February 7th, 2007 1:44 PM Author: Learning Disabled School Marketing Idea right, the problem is that the simple-minded girls keep comparing their purchases to men's purchases of cars and electronics. i don't think a stamp collection is really comparable because at least it has the potential to be donated to a philatelic organization or museum at some point in the future.
the sports collectible is the best analogy. there's the same futile hope that the bag (card) will be one of the rare ones that appreciates in value. there's the same concern for unique features: "ooh look at the holograph in the corner of my new upper deck baseball cards. now i won't ever buy a cheap imitation!" thankfully i outgrew such shit in middle school. these girls with bag obsessions seem to be living in prolonged childhood. |
Date: February 7th, 2007 1:53 PM Author: Saffron Laughsome Public Bath Twinkling Uncleanness men buy things based on their performance. I have found that for everything a guy buys -- from golf clubs to fishing rods to cars to power tools -- performance goes up rapidly with price until the knee of the curve is reached. after that, price goes up sharply for every increment of performance. handbags are not like that. a gunnysack holds as much stuff as a prada bag. the cost of a handbag is not related to its utility. expensive handbags are status symbols, pure and simple. on further thought, the male equivalent would be a rolex watch. a swatch irony keeps better time and is just as rugged. so having a rolex tells the world: I have money. |
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Date: February 7th, 2007 1:58 PM Author: Learning Disabled School Marketing Idea good points. it's worth noting that men are often most interested in optimizing the price/performance of their toys and products that do so are the ones that become cult classics. the subaru wrx is a good example of this. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=576294&forum_id=2#7560911) |
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Date: February 8th, 2007 9:49 AM Author: deep blue point idiot What about expensive clothes? Gunnysacks work just as well as Armani suits. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=576294&forum_id=2#7565771) |
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Date: February 8th, 2007 9:59 AM Author: Stimulating Theater Stage True, but don't you think far fewer men than women care about things like Armani suits? (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=576294&forum_id=2#7565795) |
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Date: February 8th, 2007 10:30 AM Author: Saffron Laughsome Public Bath Twinkling Uncleanness Expensive suits generally fit better than men's wearhouse suits, so there is a price-performance thing going on. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=576294&forum_id=2#7565867) |
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Date: February 8th, 2007 10:31 AM Author: Carnelian Mexican I think there's a certain ceiling beyond which the marginal utility for added cost will be minimal at best. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=576294&forum_id=2#7565875) |
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Date: February 8th, 2007 10:33 AM Author: Saffron Laughsome Public Bath Twinkling Uncleanness Subject: indeed "performance goes up rapidly with price until the knee of the curve is reached. after that, price goes up sharply for every increment of performance. "
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Date: February 8th, 2007 9:55 AM Author: Adulterous selfie set "men buy things based on their performance."
Absolutely correct. men don't buy expensive things because they are status symbols. They buy them after extensive investigation of the quality of performance and not because that's what they heard. Women never investigate this for anything they spend more money on, and buy strictly for status purposes. I've never been more convinced of your retardation. |
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Date: February 8th, 2007 10:32 AM Author: Saffron Laughsome Public Bath Twinkling Uncleanness your ideas interest me. can you give some concrete examples? (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=576294&forum_id=2#7565878) |
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Date: February 7th, 2007 1:54 PM Author: galvanic dysfunction I would use the "rarity" test: imagine that your TV/handbag/etc. was suddenly reproduced millions of times and spread all over the country to all sorts of people, including immigrants and poors. They have what you have.
If your possession has intrinsic value, that won't bother you. The fact that a bunch of poors have a high-end TV doesn't diminish your own.
But would women be okay if this happened to a 1K+ handbag? If Wal-Mart shoppers and the daughters of Mexican cleaning ladies started toting them around? |
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Date: February 8th, 2007 9:38 AM Author: cracking sex offender roommate Actually I think if a bunch of poors (albeit this wouldn't happen, but if it did) started driving around BMWs it would bother BMW owners. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=576294&forum_id=2#7565758) |
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Date: February 8th, 2007 9:51 AM Author: Stimulating Theater Stage This is probably true, but only to a certain extent. If BMWs cost the same as a Civic, BMWs would lose some of their status, but people would wanted performance luxury cars would still universally choose them over the Civic. This reflects that you are paying for something other than status.
Would the same hold true for $1000 bags? I guess many women do perceive them to have significant quality differences. |