Originally posted by OKBeer
Originally posted by lukin013
Originally posted by MilkmanDan
There is no such thing as an "overpriced beer". A beer is worth whatever somebody is willing to pay for it. If you aren’t willing to pay for it, don’t buy it. If nobody is willing to pay that much, the brewer will go out of business.
This is an absurd comment. So you won’t mind when the price of gas continues to rise to $5, $6, $10(K + OT)?? People will pay for it... it’s not over-priced. Rubbish. Gas is slightly more of a necessity than beer but things most certainly can be overpriced, and there are things called morals and ethics that say you should not mark your beer up 10,000%. Just because you can do something does not mean you should.
Speaking of absurd comments - if a brewer can mark up his price 10,000% and there are still enough people willing to pay for it so that said brewer can earn enough profit to keep said brewery going, what exactly is this code of morals and ethics that keep the brewer from doing so?
And he didn’t say anything about minding the price - if he thinks the price is too high for him, he doesn’t buy it. That doesn’t mean it’s overpriced.
That’s not to say I agree with his comment that there’s no such thing as overpriced. It’s overpriced when it reaches a point where the brewer doesn’t have enough people willing to buy it and still be able to keep the brewery going.
I really hope you don’t own a business. You cannot just continue to jack up prices pushing your consumers’ price thresholds. I work for a market research company that does work for Phillip Morris, and despite their consumers being addicted and willing to pay through their teeth for the product, even they are not stupid enough to price gouge their consumers.
As I said before, I’m quite fine with the current pricing of beer and I do not think $30 is unreasonable for a beer if it is a fair markup based on both the materials and the time and effort that went into the beer. |
Originally posted by jtw
Originally posted by jjpm74
Originally posted by jtw
750s are a significant waste.
Wasteful to who?
they come in handy to a small portion of the population who appreciates the ability to share a bottle among 5 or 6 people. but for someone who just wants "a beer", a 750 or even a 22 oz beer is too much.
but wasteful in the context of the thread is that the cork and cage are essentially an expensive label, which is akin to making a beer cost more, just so that people have to pay more.
I can easilly polish of a 750 in a sitting, even just messing about here on the PC. No problem whatso-ever, might take me an hour od so, but thats all good as i get to sample the range of flavour from chilled to room temperature.
750 isnt that much to drink for an expierienced beer drinker. |
Are you kidding me? Are you people communists? Of course you push your price to the most you can.
"If gas prices continued to go up to 5, 6, 10....etc..." There are economics and politics at work that prevent the cartel from just saying, "Ok, gas is now $10/gallon".
Even if this did happen, gas-alternatives would spring up VERY quickly. With gas prices on the rise, already we can see movement in this direction.
Morals and ethics arent part of Capitalism. If a brewer has them, and wants to keep his prices low, good for him, and I’m sure that many will support him in doing so.
But if you think that businesses shouldnt charge as much as they can before it begins negatively impacting their profit, then you are living in some make-believe world.
"Overpriced" is a stupid term. As was said, if it’s overpriced, a cheaper, comparable product will spring up, or sales will dry up, and the product will be foreced out or forced to a lower price. |
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Originally posted by lukin013
I really hope you don’t own a business. You cannot just continue to jack up prices pushing your consumers’ price thresholds. I work for a market research company that does work for Phillip Morris, and despite their consumers being addicted and willing to pay through their teeth for the product, even they are not stupid enough to price gouge their consumers.
You obviously don’t own a business (which you admit yourself).
Why arent they stupid enough to price gouge their consumers???
Answer: because they sell a product that, while it has inelastic demand over the whole segment (cigarette industry), shows perfect competition among brands (if you push the price too high, I will switch brands). Thus they charge as much as they can to maximize revenue and minimize customer loss. |
Originally posted by ClarkVV
Are you kidding me? Are you people communists? Of course you push your price to the most you can.
What is "the most you can"? Is it when your beer starts sitting on shelves? Is it when you have a very small but loyal set of consumers that can afford your beer and will still buy it, but you have no room to grow?
I’m not saying you should not profit from your efforts... I’m simply saying that unjustly raising your prices will do nothing but hurt business. Continually hiking prices with no justifiable cause will slowly piss people off and you will lose business. Not to mention the growth of craft brewing by converting macro drinkers. You keep inflating the price gap between macro and craft brews and the growth of your brewery and craft beer as a whole will suffer. |
Originally posted by ClarkVV
You obviously don’t own a business (which you admit yourself).
Why arent they stupid enough to price gouge their consumers???
Answer: because they sell a product that, while it has inelastic demand over the whole segment (cigarette industry), shows perfect competition among brands (if you push the price too high, I will switch brands). Thus they charge as much as they can to maximize revenue and minimize customer loss.
This is not the case with beer? I drink 90-Minute IPA somewhat regularly cause I can get it at a decent cost. If they raise the price on it too much I will certainly switch to drinking Dreadnaught.
Why would these same simple laws of economics not hold for beer? |
Originally posted by lukin013
I really hope you don’t own a business. You cannot just continue to jack up prices pushing your consumers’ price thresholds. I work for a market research company that does work for Phillip Morris, and despite their consumers being addicted and willing to pay through their teeth for the product, even they are not stupid enough to price gouge their consumers.
I didn’t say that they should continue jacking up prices and pushing consumers’ price thresholds. I said that if there are people willing to pay for a product that is marked up 10000%, why wouldn’t a company do that?
You also suggested that there is some moral or ethical reason for not marking up to that amount, yet your argument here is that there is a price threshold, which to me means what people will pay. I ask again, what does that have to do with morals or ethics?
As for the Philip Morris example, even addicts have a price point beyond which they won’t buy cigarettes, or they’ll look at cheaper options like rolling their own or the black market (assuming of course other brands aren’t cheaper). Why do you think governments continue to use tobacco tax increases to get people to stop smoking? (and yes I know there are other reasons they do this.) Again, pricing here is not based on any moral or ethical argument, but on what people will pay.
In any case, if consumers think they’re being gouged, yet have other lower priced options or have the option of not buying at all, and continue to buy, they’re not being gouged. They’re being stupid. |
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Originally posted by lukin013
I’m not saying you should not profit from your efforts... I’m simply saying that unjustly raising your prices will do nothing but hurt business. Continually hiking prices with no justifiable cause will slowly piss people off and you will lose business. Not to mention the growth of craft brewing by converting macro drinkers. You keep inflating the price gap between macro and craft brews and the growth of your brewery and craft beer as a whole will suffer.
IF people are willing to pay more, then why is the price increase unjust?
If your price increase is causing the price gap to close and therefore hurting your business and craft beer as a whole, then people AREN’T willing to pay more. That doesn’t make the price increase unjust, it makes it bad business.
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Originally posted by lukin013
Originally posted by ClarkVV
You obviously don’t own a business (which you admit yourself).
Why arent they stupid enough to price gouge their consumers???
Answer: because they sell a product that, while it has inelastic demand over the whole segment (cigarette industry), shows perfect competition among brands (if you push the price too high, I will switch brands). Thus they charge as much as they can to maximize revenue and minimize customer loss.
This is not the case with beer? I drink 90-Minute IPA somewhat regularly cause I can get it at a decent cost. If they raise the price on it too much I will certainly switch to drinking Dreadnaught.
Why would these same simple laws of economics not hold for beer?
This is exactly the point we’re trying to make - if prices go too high, people stop buying it. But at higher price points (all else equal so in your words unjust), the brewer makes more profit. If the decrease in volume is small enough that the price increase makes up for the overall loss, the brewer benefits. |
Lukin, I think we are in agreement, I guess I just misread what you were saying. I thought you were arguing that we are already at a point where craft brew is overpriced. But you are just saying, "Brewers beware, you could get to a point where you push the price to high." And I, of course, agree.
Interestingly, DFH 90 minute has gone through fairly large price increases over the years. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but suffice to say, that their increase in price was able to generate more revenue than it lost due to loss of consumers who felt that the product had become too expensive and switched back to Harpoon IPA. Else they wouldnt have continued raising prices. Frankly, their prices drove me away, but they do have a very loyal consumer base.
I think your comment about micro brews potentially pricing themselves too far out of the picture to convert macro drinkers, is a great observation.
If one local brewer is able to push his prices high and still keep up good business for himself, then he wins, while the industry as a whole loses?
In theory, the macro drinker now sees his local micro as "too expensive" and decides against switching to craft beer. The local brewer dosent care, because he has still increased his market share in the craft beer segment. So there’s no tangible economic loss for him.
However, through quasi-economics, he is doing a disservice to the whole industry (craft beer) because through pricing out the macro drinkers, you limit your new customer base and thus limit the potential growth of the industry.
This all makes ALOT of assumptions, however, and is just more my thoughts on paper.
I do think there is ALOT of truth and value to craft brewers brewing AND PROMOTING their cheap, macro-replacement beers. Probably much more important, overall, than any other marketing from the craft industry.
God bless Oberon Ale. |
