Sneaking a Profit In and Lowereing Costs

Sneaking a Profit In and Lowereing Costs was Originally Posted on August 23, 2012 by lavarock

I was just on the Clark Howard website and saw an interesting item about the new LeBron James sneakers. They retail for $315 but can you guess what the markup is?

I don’t begrudge a profit and I understand that there are marketing costs, but if you have to market a product that much, how good can it be? A good product almost sells itself because word spreads quickly.

Remember New Coke? No matter how many times Bill Cosby hyped it, it bombed like, well, new coke.

So what is the markup on those $315 sneakers? About $307. It appears it costs $7 to make them.

Now in my case, I wear sneakers and shoes from WalMart, K-Mart or anywhere else that sells things cheaply. I almost always buy generic items but have to admit to buying some Pepsi Next, only because it was .85 a 2 liter bottle compared to about $1.00 a 2 liter for the generic.

I look through the frozen food section of the supermarket for items hovering around 21 cents an ounce, which is a good price here. I’ll buy a large family sized lasagne and eat it for 2 or 3 days. I just bought a package of hamburger buns and a COSTCO chicken salad plate. That will allow me for about $13 to have about 12 meals. Oh, I’ll have something else with the sandwich but for the next few days, it’s pretty much chicken salad sandwiches.

I needed to buy water containers for the dog kennels I was shipping. These are small plastic trays that hang on the kennel/crate door and allow the dog to have a drink while waiting fro their flight. Petco had them but they were kinda expensive. As I browsed the store I found a better deal in the bird area. They are very similar to the water cups you hang on the door of a bird cage. So it appears that I was able to shop a bit and find a similar product at a reasonably less price.

I use Gasbuddy.com to ensure that I am getting a better price on gasoline. Although I usually get COSTCO gas but sometimes have to get product elsewhere. before this app and when I would drive down the Interstate to visit Mom, I would get off the main road and drive up o a mile to find if I was saving money buying gas at the interesection that was the convenient stop. Now it would be childsplay to determine which stop to make and how much I would pay for fuel. Try it online without a smartphone if you want. Go to gasbuddy.Com and type in your zipcode. Are you getting the best deal where you are buying fuel?

F.Y.I. ElPaso Texas has todays lowest gas price in the nation.