Rapha, nice but a bit pricey?

$90CAD for a sky pro team jersey... Goes to show you what the true markup is on their goods :)

It was always obvious what the true markup is as they heavily sponsored cycling events from the outset and that stuff isn't cheap.

But if you think that the price of an item to you should be cost + 10% or something, then you're mistaken. Businesses would go bust very fast even at cost + 30%.

In fact the accepted cost of producing a unit should ideally be a tenth of the intended sale price if you want your business to grow and flourish.

You've got overheads to pay, lead costs on production and shipping, storage costs, legal, marketing (including freebies to press and key people), sponsorship and branding, headcount, research and development.

The physical cost of a unit must be a small fraction of the dealer price (not retail, which is likely 60% higher), otherwise how are you going to make your business a success?

These numbers scale, so even the cheap products out there from companies have all this stuff built in. So if you see a jacket for £90, you can bet it cost ~£10 at the factory.

You'll also be surprised at the difference between a £10 jacket (per unit, in China at volume) and a £30 jacket (again per unit, in China at volume). The £30 one will feel a world away from the £10 one in terms of quality control, materials, cut, etc.

It's just an enormously false presumption that the majority of what you pay for anything goes to the BOM (bill of materials) that is the raw cost of the item. In fact, for any product you can think of the majority goes to shipping, distribution, sales and marketing (even with a humble Broccoli you pay more to get it to you and have it available on a shelf then the item really costs).

One day people will move beyond thinking such false things and realise that there is still a fundamental difference between a cheap jacket (low BOM) and an expensive jacket (higher BOM). It's just that, for your pocket, you need to spend in £10 increments to make a £1 difference to the BOM.

And... even though they are able to sell items during the sale at a massively reduced price (so long as it's still higher than BOM plus shipping and storage)... no business would survive if that was the normal retail price.

If you want cheaps... it's your choice to risk seeing whether it ever comes up in a sale. Otherwise, you should pay full price.

The big bonus though... if Rapha are moving towards a more fashion based approach to sports cycling wear. That is, changing it annually... then they will likely always have extras to fire sale at the end of each season.