Rapha, nice but a bit pricey?

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Howard in reply to @PhilDAS

I didn’t infer that at all.

I know you didn't mean to, hence I wrote 'seemed' - but that's how it can be interpreted.

I said they don’t make any products. They don’t

This is a controversial statement and requires a detailed understanding of modern supply chains and manufacturing to make sense of. It needed clarification in the context of userblahblah's comment, and @monkdagola provided that.

I thought the previous post about banging some pink on it was simply facetious and obviously not implying they’ve actually just stuck a Rapha label on someone else’s product but rather they’ve gone to a company or manufacturer who have experience of making those such products.

It's funny because I think that's exactly what the post implies, or rather I don't see much difference between white labelling and going to a supplier who can because you can't - and that's the problem with interpretation, I guess.

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PhilDAS in reply to @Howard

r I don't see much difference between white labelling and going to a supplier who can because you can't

If rapha don't own any factories then they've gone to suppliers who can because they can't for every one of their products. There is a difference.

We for example have multiple suppliers all over the globe some of whom specialise in jersey fabrics, we wouldn't have them make a wool coat, we go to a supplier with experience of wool outerwear. Its still designed in house though.

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Howard in reply to @PhilDAS

If rapha don't own any factories then they've gone to suppliers who can because they can't for every one of their products.

This isn't what I mean. I'm talking about capabilities. Rapha can because they can design, prototype in house and produce product runs. They have the capability. They go to a supplier to increase margin and other effects like volume. They could make them all in house but they'd cost 25x as much, or they could open a factory but they chose not to because it's unattractive for many boring reasons that have been done to death here.

In the case of userblahblah's comment, I think he's suggesting they don't have the capability, so they white labelled - or some similar process where the bulk of the expertise is on the supplier's side - someone else's.

But yeah you know that, I get it, I was suggesting your comment if interpreted in a certain way could be seen to be dismissive of Rapha's capabilities, and might go some way to explain the reply you got from @monkdagola , that's all.

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