Many times over the years people have said to me, ooh I love your gear, but it's so expensive, why's it so expensive? This popped up again recently on a review of our Glow flogger, so I'd like to take a little time to address the concept of cost. I'm sure no one will be surprised to hear that I don't think we are expensive.
Obviously we don't have the cheapest gear out there but in a sense that's the point. A company like Leatherbeaten will never be able to compete at the cheap end of the market. We're too small, for one thing, to be able to buy container loads of leather at extremely low prices. We're too North American for another, and try to pay our staff living wages; the hourly rate is currently $20, which isn't great for skilled labour but it's double minimum wage. And we're too picky, so we're not going to be using the cheapest materials we can find.
Like Adam from Xhale, we are also contacted on a weekly basis by factories in Asia. In our case, it's generally India and Pakistan, and they are looking to sell us bdsm gear at ridiculously low prices.
The problem from my perspective is that people then see these badly and unethically made products - they are all over the internet and local sex stores - and they become the yardstick by which value is determined. It's often hard to tell the difference between the good and the not so good from tiny pictures on the web, and people in general are not so knowledgeable about leatherwork that they can immediately separate the flash (but trash) from the great (but sedate).
Price is a good way to determine value, because it tends not to lie. As Adam says, retailers routinely double the price of the products they buy for resale. This covers their wages and overhead. Some will go higher, very few will go less. So, for example, if you find a seventy dollar braided cat o' nine in your local toyshop, you can figure the storeowner paid thirty five for it.
I have braided more cats of nine than I care to think about, and my best time for a 24 incher is around fifteen minutes, average twenty. There is also a hard physical limit to how many cats you can braid. If that's what you're doing all day every day, you won't be doing it very long. (Not if you're braiding tightly.) So let's say twenty minutes times nine = three hours to braid the lashes. Add in a couple of Turk's Head knots - I've tied even more of those than I've braided cats, and to tie and tighten takes me 35-40 minutes. Two per piece is well over an hour. And we haven't added in the time to braid the handle! We pay our staff as I said, $20 an hour.
So that lovely seventy dollar cat has some questions to answer about its cheapness. Where was it made? How was it made? Why is it so cheap?
At that price I would hope the lash is machine braided, but I don't know of any machine that can tie a Turk's Head. And if the store is buying it for thirty five dollars, there's no way it was legally made in North America. So the company selling it to the store is likely paying no more than twenty. Then, of course, the owner of the factory where it's made will have to make some money. And cheap as the material may be, it will likely cost something. So what are the people who actually make this item being paid?
I am quite happy to answer questions about our "expensiveness", but I'd love to ask a few of the cheaper product. What quality of material is being used? Does it carry an unconditional lifetime warranty against defects in manufacturing and materials? How happy is the workforce? How safe is the workplace? You can probably add a few yourself.
Why should a person who handcrafts a quality piece of work have it compared against a far lower quality piece of machine made (insert appropriate noun), as though they were equal?
It's very odd, and it may be a hangover from the days when all sex shops were trashy dingy holes and everything was so sordid it just made sense for the gear to be sordid too. We're trying to put those days behind us, and drag the quality level up. That necessarily involves higher prices than maybe people have been used to, but overall, having better sex toys available is a good thing. Right? A good sex toy, as we can read in the review section every day, is a step closer to Nirvana. A bad sex toy can be two steps in the opposite direction!
To summarise, because I know I ramble on.
Our prices are what they are because that is what we need to charge to stay in business, without compromising our quality and ethics of production. That means using the best materials we can, paying a living wage to our staff, and manufacturing our gear in Canada.
The question "Why is this so expensive?" becomes more meaningful when asked in conjunction with the question "Why is that so cheap?'
And to conclude, I'd like to say that this is in no way to disrespect or tarnish any other company on this or any other website. We all set our own rules as to how we operate and as long as we operate within the law, it's all good, right? It's just intended to answer a question I get asked a lot, primarily because of the prevalence of cheap product in this business.
Good, Just had to get that off my chest!
Comments welcome - crucifixions by appointment!
Billy
Obviously we don't have the cheapest gear out there but in a sense that's the point. A company like Leatherbeaten will never be able to compete at the cheap end of the market. We're too small, for one thing, to be able to buy container loads of leather at extremely low prices. We're too North American for another, and try to pay our staff living wages; the hourly rate is currently $20, which isn't great for skilled labour but it's double minimum wage. And we're too picky, so we're not going to be using the cheapest materials we can find.
Like Adam from Xhale, we are also contacted on a weekly basis by factories in Asia. In our case, it's generally India and Pakistan, and they are looking to sell us bdsm gear at ridiculously low prices.
The problem from my perspective is that people then see these badly and unethically made products - they are all over the internet and local sex stores - and they become the yardstick by which value is determined. It's often hard to tell the difference between the good and the not so good from tiny pictures on the web, and people in general are not so knowledgeable about leatherwork that they can immediately separate the flash (but trash) from the great (but sedate).
Price is a good way to determine value, because it tends not to lie. As Adam says, retailers routinely double the price of the products they buy for resale. This covers their wages and overhead. Some will go higher, very few will go less. So, for example, if you find a seventy dollar braided cat o' nine in your local toyshop, you can figure the storeowner paid thirty five for it.
I have braided more cats of nine than I care to think about, and my best time for a 24 incher is around fifteen minutes, average twenty. There is also a hard physical limit to how many cats you can braid. If that's what you're doing all day every day, you won't be doing it very long. (Not if you're braiding tightly.) So let's say twenty minutes times nine = three hours to braid the lashes. Add in a couple of Turk's Head knots - I've tied even more of those than I've braided cats, and to tie and tighten takes me 35-40 minutes. Two per piece is well over an hour. And we haven't added in the time to braid the handle! We pay our staff as I said, $20 an hour.
So that lovely seventy dollar cat has some questions to answer about its cheapness. Where was it made? How was it made? Why is it so cheap?
At that price I would hope the lash is machine braided, but I don't know of any machine that can tie a Turk's Head. And if the store is buying it for thirty five dollars, there's no way it was legally made in North America. So the company selling it to the store is likely paying no more than twenty. Then, of course, the owner of the factory where it's made will have to make some money. And cheap as the material may be, it will likely cost something. So what are the people who actually make this item being paid?
I am quite happy to answer questions about our "expensiveness", but I'd love to ask a few of the cheaper product. What quality of material is being used? Does it carry an unconditional lifetime warranty against defects in manufacturing and materials? How happy is the workforce? How safe is the workplace? You can probably add a few yourself.
Why should a person who handcrafts a quality piece of work have it compared against a far lower quality piece of machine made (insert appropriate noun), as though they were equal?
It's very odd, and it may be a hangover from the days when all sex shops were trashy dingy holes and everything was so sordid it just made sense for the gear to be sordid too. We're trying to put those days behind us, and drag the quality level up. That necessarily involves higher prices than maybe people have been used to, but overall, having better sex toys available is a good thing. Right? A good sex toy, as we can read in the review section every day, is a step closer to Nirvana. A bad sex toy can be two steps in the opposite direction!
To summarise, because I know I ramble on.
Our prices are what they are because that is what we need to charge to stay in business, without compromising our quality and ethics of production. That means using the best materials we can, paying a living wage to our staff, and manufacturing our gear in Canada.
The question "Why is this so expensive?" becomes more meaningful when asked in conjunction with the question "Why is that so cheap?'
And to conclude, I'd like to say that this is in no way to disrespect or tarnish any other company on this or any other website. We all set our own rules as to how we operate and as long as we operate within the law, it's all good, right? It's just intended to answer a question I get asked a lot, primarily because of the prevalence of cheap product in this business.
Good, Just had to get that off my chest!
Comments welcome - crucifixions by appointment!
Billy
