Inflation on new LX equipment (especially mirrorballs!)

[marktownend]

OK, I've recently had a few issues with some of my 50cm mirrorballs (one self destructed when it got damp and shed far too many facets to be worth repairing, another is just looking really rough as loads of facets are sticking out at weird angles and it's clearly about to self-destruct, and a third self destructed this week by rolling itself off the admittedly slightly precarious position I'd put it in whilst I delved in the bottom of the box to retrieve a few facets that had come off).

So I thought I'd splash out on some replacements, but have been shocked to find they now cost over 4 times as much as when I got them in 2008. Now I realise prices always rise, but an inflation calculator shows a rise of 50% since then, not the 300+% inflation that mirrorballs have been subject to.

Anyone know if this is specific to mirrorballs (potentially to do with increased transport costs for a large lightweight item), or am I just out of touch and all LX kit has soared way above inflation? I used to add a 30cm mirrorball to small orders from various suppliers if it helped take it over the threshold for free delivery, but don't think I'll be doing that now!

Edited January 19, 2023 by marktownend

[ianknight]

10 hours ago, marktownend said:

OK, I've recently had a few issues with some of my 50cm mirrorballs (one self destructed when it got damp and shed far too many facets to be worth repairing, another is just looking really rough as loads of facets are sticking out at weird angles and it's clearly about to self-destruct, and a third self destructed this week by rolling itself off the admittedly slightly precarious position I'd put it in whilst I delved in the bottom of the box to retrieve a few facets that had come off).

So I thought I'd splash out on some replacements, but have been shocked to find they now cost over 4 times as much as when I got them in 2008. Now I realise prices always rise, but an inflation calculator shows a rise of 50% since then, not the 300+% inflation that mirrorballs have been subject to.

Anyone know if this is specific to mirrorballs (potentially to do with increased transport costs for a large lightweight item), or am I just out of touch and all LX kit has soared way above inflation? I used to add a 30cm mirrorball to small orders from various suppliers if it helped take it over the threshold for free delivery, but don't think I'll be doing that now!

Sadly (as with many such items) they're imported on the whole from China & supply chains are creaking under the strain of reduced production levels because of CoVid lockdowns & from longer transit times (again because of CoVid). It would seem a lot of UK/EU suppliers are being presented with higher prices themselves by their suppliers as a result and those rises will get passed on. I suspect prices will end up back around where they were in the mid 90's before Chinese imports becamse de rigeur 😞

[ImagineerTom]

19 hours ago, marktownend said:

OK, I've recently had a few issues with some of my 50cm mirrorballs (one self destructed when it got damp and shed far too many facets to be worth repairing, another is just looking really rough as loads of facets are sticking out at weird angles and it's clearly about to self-destruct, and a third self destructed this week by rolling itself off the admittedly slightly precarious position I'd put it in whilst I delved in the bottom of the box to retrieve a few facets that had come off).

So I thought I'd splash out on some replacements, but have been shocked to find they now cost over 4 times as much as when I got them in 2008. Now I realise prices always rise, but an inflation calculator shows a rise of 50% since then, not the 300+% inflation that mirrorballs have been subject to.

Anyone know if this is specific to mirrorballs (potentially to do with increased transport costs for a large lightweight item), or am I just out of touch and all LX kit has soared way above inflation? I used to add a 30cm mirrorball to small orders from various suppliers if it helped take it over the threshold for free delivery, but don't think I'll be doing that now!

It's not so much they are lightweight so much as high volume & low value. Container shipping (which is 99% of the goods you buy) is based on volume and the prices have gone up a lot; the 30cm cube needed to ship a single mirror ball costs just the same to ship as a 30cm cube full of smartphones. The former has to absorb the increased shipping costs into the price of a single low cost high volume item whereas with the smartphones the increased costs are shared across 50+ smartphones that each already sell for 10 times the price of the mirror ball so barely makes a dent.  Also the B-word is a huge contributor even for non EU goods as before there was 2 ways to get things on and off the island (EU & Non EU) whereas now there is only 1 channel which is more prone to delays and backlogs (because they're handling more than twice the volume) and lots of new paperwork procedures to deal with. All these create work originating the paperwork and variables no one can predict so costs for delivery and processing now have to include a huge buffer because your shipment might sail through the boarder no problem or it might be parked on the side of a motorway for 2 days; it is almost impossible to get a guaranteed time cross boarder transport service at the moment. 

[Junior8]

A few years ago now - or with my age it may be more like 12 - I covered a conference on ethical sourcing in the rag trade. The keynote speaker who was the monitoring officer for a group of UK sports goods retailers - not the one most people think of - reckoned that going forward it wasn't the ethical sourcing that would be the problem it would be price and logistics. Asked bluntly she reckoned it would be logistics but the burden of her message was make hay while the sun shines because it isn't going to last forever. Sadly one cannot expect politicians to understand the effects of any of their, what I suppose we should dignify by the name of, policies but the fact is that she was clear that irrespective of this (and Mr Cameron's poll) sourcing goods from miles away just to save labour costs might turn round and bite.

(On tyres, down here, I suspect one of the main reasons for price inflation seems to be that a major wholesaler has hoovered up many of their independent retail customers. I've got the best deals by simply using the garage I use for everything else.) 

Edited January 21, 2023 by Junior8

[paulears]

I sell imported radios - mainly marine ones but a few clever ham products, and over the past year the prices have gone up crazily. I'll order in usually 10's - and then  reorder when stock down to 2 or 3, so perhaps six weeks/8 weeks between orders. margin normally between 20 and 30% on the cost price after VAT and other costs. A popular radio a year ago was £199, now to maintain that margin it would need to be 309 - and at that price sales have dropped, so that ones is off the list now. Another Class A marine radio was always available so I could sell it - and it was genuinely a good deal at £240 - now the cost price is £260 - again, in the space of a year.  I'm an authorised re-seller for Yaesu and Kenwood, via the main dealer, and the aviation radio bargains I was selling have moved from a retail price of £250 up to £300. Worse is that the shipping fees have also risen crazily too - so for one of my suppliers, it's actually cheaper to post ten separate packages via UPS that it is to send 10 in one box. The postage on some expensive military style radios was £90 for just a small order of 3 - totally order cost about £660, but £750 with the shipping. Containers and therefore part containers are not an option either - if you try that, for a smaller order - say a quarter of a container, then 90 days, and over a grand is typical, plus the clearance and end shipping fees. I had a customer who wanted some larger speaker cabinets. I found a supplier and the price was pretty good, but the shipping killed it. Cheaper to order from Thomann. I increased prices each time the cost price went up. Anything over 20Kgs and over .2m3 starts to get very pricey indeed if it comes via air.

[marktownend]

Thanks all and I appreciate you're all much more regular contributors on here than me, but I was specifically asking about LX equipment rather than how inflation is affecting any number of other parts of our lives.

ImagineerTom - not sure why I typed 'lightweight', I certainly meant low value! I'd heard rumours of costs for shipping a container from the Far East going up by 7-10 times back in the pandemic but didn't know if they'd stayed at those levels.

So my original question still stands, anyone know if the 300% inflation over 15 years is specific to mirrorballs or is other LX kit subject to similar increases?

[bruce]

Chat on tyres has rolled off to the Crew Room.... 

[J Pearce]

10 hours ago, marktownend said:

anyone know if the 300% inflation over 15 years is specific to mirrorballs or is other LX kit subject to similar increases?

I think one aspect is that inflation tends to effect the price of lower value items more significantly than higher value items, as the margin is already tighter and a greater proportion of the price is costs like transport/import/storage/marketing/support etc. Mirrorballs take up quite a bit of space for a low value item so the manufacture price might not have changed much but the cost once landed in the UK is much higher. A similar rise in shipping on a moving light that's already £1k+ might not show up as significant in the pricing.

I've not noticed 300% rises on sound kit (my last LX purchases were 2019), though some items might well be as high as 150% of 2019 prices.

[ImagineerTom]

Pre covid etc I could get a 40ft container to anywhere in the world and have change from £2k. 
Current rates aren’t at peek they once were but at the moment it’s £7k for a container from China to uk dock…. Plus processing / paperwork and onwards uk delivery by road of around £1000. 

[marktownend]

OK, thanks - at 8k for a container that fits roughly 384 x 50cm mirrorballs that's £21 per unit for shipping, which goes some way to that increase but nowhere near all of it. So I either need to accept it, or wait another year or 2 to see if shipping (and therefore retail [yeah, right!]) prices come down... I'm also aware that the price I'd paid 15 years ago seemed ridiculously good value at the time for an item that even then was quite frankly underpriced by all retailers.

I've now got the issue of deciding whether to stick with 10mm facets to match my others or spend just a little more to get 5mm facets which look better. First world problems hey.

Edited January 23, 2023 by marktownend
Simple maths error.

[Brian]

34 minutes ago, marktownend said:

I've now got the issue of deciding whether to stick with 10mm facets to match my others or spend just a little more to get 5mm facets which look better. First world problems hey.

Or unequal, and mounted horizontally!

[the kid]

Without being obvious have you looked at used ones at all?

I know we have a bunch for sale in various sizes but I think what would be a pallet from Sweden @£300 or so would be not worth it.  

[ImagineerTom]

Remembering that energy costs have shot up (both for manufacture and transport) AND Uk looks set to have inflation of 10%+ for 3 consecutive years whilst the rest of the world, though not as bad, is still hitting 6-7% annual inflation it's folly to think that prices will drop down to pre-covid levels or anything close to them. You should be looking at your needs now and working out whether it's worth buying several now (and getting some sort of bulk discount) or one by one over the next couple of years and hoping that transportation inflation drops faster than retail inflation rises.

Edited January 23, 2023 by ImagineerTom
typo

[James Remo]

6 hours ago, marktownend said:I've now got the issue of deciding whether to stick with 10mm facets to match my others or spend just a little more to get 5mm facets which look better. First world problems hey.

Conversely I find the bigger the mirrorball facets the fatter the beams you get from it. The smaller facets just end up as mush - lots of tiny indistinguishable beams. 

[david.elsbury]

7 hours ago, marktownend said:

OK, thanks - at 8k for a container that fits roughly 384 x 50cm mirrorballs that's £21 per unit for shipping, which goes some way to that increase but nowhere near all of it.

You’re assuming someone is thinking it’s worth while to ship an entire container of mirror balls… it’s much more likely they’ll do a part shipment and put lots of other stuff in there too