Are we being cond?

[michaelmc]

It seems to me that some sellers out there charge huge mark ups on ABDL products .
After a lot off searching the net i found a lot of the products we see on ebay , Amazon and many websites being sold by manufacturers a lot cheaper
For example a adult pacifier costs 50p each minimum order 500 pieces then sold on for £4.99 min on market places and sites
Then stick on a charm (52p +£1.60 postage) and now sell for £14 So why not cut out the bling scam and bling your own pacifier like i have buy your £4.99 dummy and buy a charm or badge and glue it on yourself

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003411366954.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.35.368de2f0o8mVPK&algo_pvid=4997d3f6-4fdd-913d-eccc2ab867c0&algo_exp_id=4997d3f6-34af-4fdd-913d-eccc2ab867c0-17&pdp_npi=4%40dis%21GBP%211.05%21052%21%21%211.29%21%21%40211b88ec16917987563102047ecf1a%2112000025668243536%21sea%21GB%212181204192%21&curPageLogUid=ZBeTV7gvjePX

Im not saying it's wrong to make a mark up and make money but some make HUGE mark ups there is profit then there is Robbery .
When an item goes from £18 to £3.99 on sale they aren't making a loss just cutting down profit to shift slow or none selling stock .
All im saying is a fair price not a piss take I've been on Global express , Alibaba , China trade , to name some and know prices + taxes and duty and it annoys me to see how some take advantage , i could rant on but i will let you debate this...

 

[BoundCoder]

There's a few things at play here.

First, while you absolutely can buy stuff at comparatively insane prices compared to North American, the quality is an extremely mixed bag. Those cost savings come from cutting basically every possible corner and operating in countries with much more lax regulation. China does produce good stuff, but they produce a lot of really not good stuff too, and that is what people associate with imported Chinese goods.

There is also a lot of overhead cost associated in logistics and shipping. Bulk pricing works because it's not actually that much more expensive to ship 500 of something than it is to ship one of something. When you're buying something retail, ABDL or otherwise, a lot of the cost isn't in the actual product, it's in all the stuff around the product and involved in getting the product to you.

There is also overhead in running a store (online or otherwise). The less volume a store is doing (as is likely for a niche product), the less surface area you've got to distribute that cost. Less volume also increases storage costs which means you can't as easily take advantage of bulk pricing (since if you can't sell 500 units quickly, you don't want to be paying to store them forever).

Speaking of, stores will absolutely sell at a loss to clear out inventory. Storing stuff is expensive, and at a certain point you really are better off practically giving it away rather than paying to continue storing something that isn't selling or is about to be replaced by something else.

Obviously there is going to be markup, but comparing retail product costs to a bulk seller in china isn't really a fair comparison.

 

[BobbiSueEllen]

As a retailer, one of the biggest risks is not being able to sell off an entire batch. Those 50p binkies...a retailer buys a minimum batch of 500, that's £250. If they're lucky, the retailer will be the first and only retail source, they can mark up as much as they want, say £15 and sell 20...that's £300 so far...then, someone nearby gets some, undercuts you at £12, so you drop to £10 and sell 15...that's £150 and a total of £450...that's a £200 profit and for that profit you can dump prices more, sell a few until sales stop and any leftover product can be clearanced or tossed out. It's waste, for sure, but ya gotta make room for the next big thing.

Or if you get into the game late, you gotta undercut deep to compete...and by then, customer appeal is gone because the market is now saturated and sales have trickled. There goes your £250, you hardly sold any and your stock ain't moving. Unless a new market demand opens up...no sales and a thick coat of dust.

The manufacturers almost always make some profit...but not all wholesalers or retailers profit, and some are lucky to just break even.

And it's even worse with a niche market like ours with a finicky customer base.

 

[Belarin]

Appologies slight rant ahead.

These are good points, along with the overhead costs of storing goods, depending on where you sell can mean you have to boost prices, sites like etsy, ebay, amazon market etc. all charge a base fee to list an item and most of them will also take a percentage of your sale on top of that.

Also taking into account delivery cost of getting the items to you, transport cost to put them in storage if you don't have space at home (or as with some places are not allowed to run a business from your home), storage costs, resource/power/time costs if you modify them including shipping again or fuel if driving to a store to buy extras, transport again to get items from storage in order to post, packaging materials and postage, advertising (how else will people know you sell them), power and labour time for processing orders and maintaining records of past orders/stocks etc. paper and printer ink for shipping labels... the list goes on.

So to appear less of a con you buy the item at 50p per piece in a bulk lot of 500. Taking all your expenses to actually produce and move the final product into account (not incl. time) and including the shipping in the price for the customer, you discover that if you sell anywhere below £5 you will make a loss. Now after much research and getting to know the market (more time expense) well enough you realise you may only sell around 100 in a year as it is a niche market and that may even be pushing it.

So maybe 2 items sold per week at a minimum of £5 to break even, now how long are you spending gluing things on or making modifications? what is that time worth to you? you decide to sell for £10, congrats if that item sells as expected you have made £520 in one year, I don't know about you but that wouldn't cover 1 month rent for most people.

Now depending on what it is you are selling and whether you want your shop to be known for good quality many of those sales will not be regular or repeat custom, you need to expand into new products to make enough money to live on but the problem now is that people are saying your store is a rip off and over charging for items, Other sellers have also noticed your market and are undercutting you so your sales drop, you have to close your store and move on.

This is why although there are and have been many, many ABDL shops, most of them don't last long, those that do are the ones who charge high enough for a large range of quality products to be able to outlive the competition and stick around long enough that they become a common name in the community and pull in customers just by being well known. (think stores like privatina, their prices aren't actually that high for many things but their custom stuff can get costly if you need a different size or an alteration. This Onesie for instance at £56, buying material in bulk from manufacturers I could put something like this together in just over an hour with a material cost of about £12-£14 which is a big difference.

You pay a high price not to fill some greedy persons pockets but to cover the time and expense of putting everything together, their experience, training and practice, the background costs of owning a storefront, their knowledge of where to source materials and how to make things, and so on. Sure there are folks out there doing as little as possible, using the cheapest resources and overcharging cause "hey! Niche market, these people have no where else to go to get these things" but they tend not to last long.

 

[BobaFettish]

It might be my age, but I remember when Attends were the absolute best diaper out.

Right now, I'm just excited that there's enough of us to keep these ABDL businesses in business.

If you would have told me when I was wearing a 6 tape Attends, that I would have lots of printed diapers, a dozen snap onesies, a couple sleeper onesies, kid style pajamas, a dozen pair of training pants, and changing pads that are the right size, it would have been hard for me to believe it.
I don't care if per unit it's 50¢ for adult sizes pacifiers, and I paid 10ish or whatever, I've got multiple pacis in my fav sports teams colors, a lot like I had when i was Little Little.
I don't feel ripped off on anything in the Little area of my closet. I feel fortunate I have the things I do.
I've been into things that are a money suck. My Little gear and diapers aren't breaking me like other things did.

 

[Anemone]

What feels like a reasonable markup rarely is.