Why are rubbers so expensive?

One thing I will say is, it is kind of hard to compare price/performance/quality between Butterfly rubbers and ESN rubbers.

For the first three weeks ESN rubbers are comparable. But then the performance deteriorates much faster after that.

But all of this is for each player to assess and decide what is right for him/her.

I do think Lazer is actually making some good points. And we sort of have to respect how he feels since a decent amount of the discussion is about that.

- I can prepare approximately 15-20 home cooked meals for about $80.00 USD.
- I can go to a restaurant and order dinner for 2, with appetizers, main course, desert and drinks for Under $80.00 USD.
- In USA I see 1 Sheet of Tenergy listed for $79.99 which to me = $80.00.

Now, it depends on your priorities. Does dinner for more than 2 weeks, seem like a value equivalent to 1 sheet of Tenergy; and/or: Does a meal for 2 with all the frills including service, at a decent restaurant seem like it would be equivalent in value to 1 sheet of Tenergy?

Each of us can make those decisions for ourselves.

Originally Posted by Funk Fu Master

But, during a cursory glance through the posts, I often came across posts, about how cheap & inferior Chinese rubbers are.. Some posts even inferred that they're cheap cause they're inferior..

And posts like this one keep popping up years after years on reddit.

What Carl described is Home Economics... something that has disappeared it seams.

Originally Posted by IB66

Everyone always seems to quote Butterfly as having the most expensive rubbers, but actually DHS do!! Their H3 National rubbers cost more than D05 etc.
Generally BTY rubbers are slightly more expensive, but ESN are also pretty costly. With the likes of R48 and Dynaryz matching T05.
At the other end of prices, yep it’s generally Chinese brands that are cheaper.

In another thread, discussing some new Victas rubbers, I quoted ‘Made in China, priced in Japan’ !! Recently there’s been talk that Victas want their top sheets and sponges made in China. Will these rubbers be cheaper?? No frickin way !!!

If a manufacturer was able to produce a new ‘game changing’ rubber, but only cost £1/€1/$1/¥1 to manufacture, would they sell it for £2/€2/$2/¥2, making a 100% profit?? Nah!! They would price it just above the current ‘so called best rubber’ because if the new rubber is ‘seen’ to be better then surely it should cost more ?? Or maybe slightly cheaper!!

At the end of the day, we buy the stuff at the price the manufacturers set, we have a choice, if no one bought D05 or H3 Nat then it would either be discontinued or the price cut.
Manufacturers push the envelope, we lick it and stick it !! And send them are hard earned bucks!!

The Victas interview that yours truly mentioned where they explain why they wanted Victas Triple to be totally made-in-China and how more and more pros, female first 7 years ago and then male 3 years ago, are switching to Chinese tacky rubbers, which are gaining ground in Japan and South Korea. iruiru has decided to carry the white package BS H3 this April.




Folks thought I was joking...
http://mytabletennis.net/forum/forum...terview#918187




https://ooakforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=24841

Sharara said this help would mainly consist of allowing young players from other countries to train with China's elite players, not just provincial teams, plus access to China's equipment technology, which is superior.

Cost of the factory machinery is entering in the selling price of rubber products. This is an elementary law of industrial economy. Japanese Tamasu Rubber Company using per usual peculiar rubber colorants being derived from fresh blood pumped out of Australian reptilians

Originally Posted by Lazer

A Dignics here goes for 95Euro's a good blade can be had for 30Euros... One excellent example is Stiga Offensive Classic.That's even a big brand name, There are several Tibhar's and probably a couple of TSP's and Gewo's too...Sorry I don't buy Chineese cheapo stuff... The QC has gone out for lunch break...

Exactly, Stiga OFF is hard to beat for the price. The finish wasn't the best when I bought it (it was quite some time ago), it had some rough edges, but structurally it's great.Crazy thing is, or maybe it seems unnatural, that my rubbers cost 3 times more than my blade. And If I bought Dignics, it would be six times as much 🤯. And for sure to make a blade is much more laborious than to make a rubber. And materials should cost more too. Think about all the woods, cheap and expensive (sometimes very expensive like hinoki because of the scarsity), all the composites that are included and all the wood working and gluing that goes into it.

Some time ago, there was an interview in TTD with CEO of maybe Tibhar? and he talked there about table tennis economics. So basically, rubbers are so much more profitable compared to the blades: it's cheaper to manufacture and it's a consumable.

Originally Posted by olzetezkarzo

there is no real reason why ferrari costs 200.000 and why dignics costs 100.the only reason is they are the top products..... and people like having the best.could a ferrari be sold for 30.000? could a dignics be sold for 30?------------> for sure.... and they would still make a profit

I doubt you could buy a Ferrari for 30k, because it actually does cost a lot to do all R&D ferrari needs to be on top of the game. And because of low numbers, R&D per car is very high. And I don't think there is a lot R&D needed for making new rubbers. It's a rubber after all, not a rocker (or a sports car 😀). Tweaking a chemical mixture a little bit and spending a lot on marketing 😁 . You even outsource the manufacture of it to decrease the costs even more.

And yes, I think you could sell Dignics for 30, or if you cut down on marketing, for 10 I think 😁

Originally Posted by zeio

Blame the US. The entire world is paying the price for its greed.The madness started when the price of natural rubber started shooting up like there's no tomorrow after the financial crisis of 2007-2008, that even ESN admitted they felt the squeeze. Butterfly had to increase the price of their blades and rubbers because the US and Japan printed so much money, AKA quantitative easing(QE), which actually stands for currency manipulation of the 1st world countries to keep the dollar and yen low. Ironically, QE is a Japanese invention in the name of stimulating the economy and growth.The price of natural rubber and crude oil from which synthetic rubber is derived has gone down in the last few years but manufacturers are playing dumb.I feel bad for the dude who made a thread warning people on MyTT a decade ago.The ITTF is also to blame.

The price of goods (in this case of table tennis rubbers) does not depend on QE, but on the level of inflation (a.k.a increase/ decrease on cost of labor and materials). And I've been hearing about hyper inflation caused by QE for the last ten years and am still waiting for it.. After QE, FED started contractionary monetary policy and started decreasing the amount of dollars available. But then the coronovirus came..😪

And no, QE is not a currency manipulation. Currency manipulation would be for example keeping the price of a currency artificially low for boosting exports (like China did for a long time) by not allowing it to move freely and let the market forces decide it.

Here is the usd price index (UDX) compared to its main trading partners. So dollar was going up, not down starting the financial crisis..


.


the price of rubber makes totally insignificant part of the cost structure for making expensive rubbers like Dignics. (The price of rubber would be more important for Palio or similar rubbers though).

The Dignics cost that much because people think that buying more expensive rubbers will make them better players.

Originally Posted by Higuain

There is nothing to do with prices, due to Covid-19, demand has fallen significantly, so that at least somehow support rubber prices have jumped significantly. Therefore, the choice goes towards China, I personally take it on Aliexpress.

Hmmm. Say in same sentence... due to Coviddie... lower demand... but say that MADE PRICES GO UP SIGNIFICANTLY ???!!!

Law of supply/demand is that prices go DOWN if there is significantly less demand.

​​​​​​​U Mistyped ??

Butterfly was forced to raise their prices after the financial tsunami of 2007-2008 and it had nothing to do with CPI inflation. Their sales took a big hit between 2010 and 2016 and only recovered in 2017 with the introduction of Rozena.

I'll just post these here.

https://youtu.be/Tvejrvz_-L4?t=340
美国为什么敢疯狂印钞不怕通货膨胀？因为你正在为他的任性买单！
Why can the US print money crazily without any fear of inflation? Because you're the one paying the price for its caprice!
@5:40
Second, as the global reserve currency, the US dollar can mix and match goods and services across the globe. The good stuff produced by people in every country, the US gets to have it first. Therefore, the inflation brought on in the coming years is globalized, and not in the US. Even more, the structure of the global market system, the outer structure around the core is very special. The further out, the higher the inflation rate. The further in, the more stable the inflation rate. Hence, the inflation in the US turns out to be one of the most slightest around the world.

Indeed, Europe and Japan have a special social structure. Their population aging is even more severe than the US, and so their domestic spending is shrinking. That's why for economies with global excess capacity and a severe domestic aging population, not only is their consumer price index(CPI) inflation non-existent, there is likely some partial deflation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quanti...an_before_2007

A policy termed "quantitative easing" (量的金融緩和, ryōteki kin'yū kanwa) was first used by the Bank of Japan (BOJ) to fight domestic deflation in the early 2000s.
...
Since the global financial crisis of 2007–08, policies similar to those undertaken by Japan have been used by the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Eurozone. Quantitative easing was used by these countries because their risk-free short-term nominal interest rates (termed the federal funds rate in the US, or the official bank rate in the UK) were either at or close to zero.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japane...crisis_of_2008

However, this trend of depreciation reversed after the global economic crisis of 2008. Other major currencies, except the Swiss franc, have been declining relative to the yen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quanti..._and_Abenomics

In early October 2010, the Bank of Japan announced that it would examine the purchase of ¥5 trillion (US$60 billion) in assets. This was an attempt to push down the value of the yen against the US dollar to stimulate the domestic economy by making Japanese exports cheaper; however, it was ineffective.[72]

---

The two sources below are from 2010 when the yen rose like crazy. There are tons more.

http://orientaldaily.on.cc/cnt/finan...00202_004.html

專營日本科技及電子產品的JC Shop業務發展部經理莊天賜表示，日圓匯價上升，增加日本產品的運費及來貨價，店舖除調高產品售價約10%外，入貨策略較過往謹慎，例如產品本身推出六種顏色，現時只會引入三至四種較受歡迎的顏色。

另外，香港右軚汽車商會榮譽會長羅少雄認為，中小型車行受日圓升勢影響較大型車行大，由於從日本進口的車輛，來貨價較過往為高，但入口商又不能將匯價升幅完全轉嫁予消費者，年內只調高日本車售價約5%，以免影響銷量。

Chong Tin Chi, the business development manager of JC Shop, which specializes in Japanese technology and electronic products, said that the increase in the yen exchange rate has increased the shipping and incoming prices of Japanese products. In addition to raising the product price by about 10%, the purchase strategy is more cautious than in the past. For example, the product itself has six colors, but currently only three to four more popular colors are introduced.

In addition, Lo Siu Hung, honorary chairman of the Hong Kong R.H.D. Motors Association, believes that small and medium-sized car dealers are affected by the yen’s rising trend more than larger dealers. Since vehicles imported from Japan are more expensive than in the past, yet importers cannot pass on the increase fully onto the consumers, the price of Japanese cars was increased only by about 5% during the year to avoid affecting sales.

https://www.hkepc.com/forum/viewthre...tra=page%3D426

canon 表示日元升一個價位，那年利益便少了64 億日元(今朝聽104 話)所以日元升，出口的叫苦。

Canon indicates the appreciation of the yen devoured 6.4 billion yens(104 this morning) of profit for the year. So, whenever the yen rises, exports suffer.

---

These two below are from 2009 after prices for Japanese cameras rose like rockets in China.
http://finance.sina.com.cn/consume/2...45889850.shtml

数码相机从来都降价 这回涨20%
...
业内人士认为此轮涨价的直接原因是日元升值，此外，金融危机造成原材料价格上涨，引发产能不足也有一定的原因。

Digital cameras have always dropped in prices | This time it's up 20%
...
Industry insiders believe that the direct reason for this round of price increases is the appreciation of the yen. In addition, the financial crisis has caused the price of raw materials to rise, leading to insufficient production capacity which is also part of the reason.

http://tech.sina.com.cn/digi/dc/2009...73034557.shtml

据悉佳能和索尼两大品牌由于货源不足导致的暂时性涨价，而尼康则宣传由于经济危机导致日元升值，日元升值后导致了日本数码相机的产量下降，原材料价格上涨而不得不涨价来维持收支的平衡，不管怎么说涨价肯定不是我们所愿意看到的，尼康的代理商这样告诉沈卉，如果日元继续升值，相机的价格还会上涨，而日本数码相机企业也将面临亏损的危险，可喜的是目前市场上全画幅数码相机还没有出现价格上涨的局面，相反价格有着小幅的下调。

It is reported that the two major brands of Canon and Sony have temporarily increased prices due to insufficient supply, while Nikon indicates after the appreciation of the yen due to the economic crisis, the output of Japanese digital cameras has fallen. The prices of raw materials have risen and prices have to be increased to maintain the balance of revenue and expenditure. Price increases are certainly not what we want to see. Nikon’s agents told Shen Hui that if the yen continues to appreciate, the price of cameras will rise, and Japanese digital camera companies will also face the danger of loss. Fortunately, the price of full-frame digital cameras on the market has not yet risen, on the contrary, the price has dropped slightly.

Everyone alive right now has lived through that period. The problem is remembering them years later.

Folks should give this article a read to understand how the world really works.

https://research.hktdc.com/en/article/NDMwNDkwNzgw

First, in the real world, not all currencies can be considered as having the same purchasing power. For example, the Bank of Japan launched quantitative easing policy as early as 2001, but it has not clearly exported any inflation to the world. Yen’s over-supply was partially offset by its depreciation vs US dollar.
...
Although the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, and the Bank of Japan introduced unprecedented quantitative easing after the 2008 financial crisis, the effect of these QEs on global inflation were limited due to the adjustment of exchange rates of these countries’ currency vs the US dollar. For example, although the European Central Bank launched a similar asset purchase program during the European debt crisis, the exchange rate of the euro vs US dollar fell from a high of 1.4 to a low of 1.04, a decline of more than 25%. The purchase power of euro fell significantly; Similarly, the dollar‑yen exchange rate has risen from 75 to 125, an increase of more than 60%, limiting the effect of multiple rounds of quantitative easing by the Bank of Japan on global inflation.

In the absence of major changes in the foreign exchange market, the only QE that can cause significant inflation pressure globally is Fed’s quantitative easing.

That's why I wrote in my first post that manufacturers are playing dumb. Once the prices are raised, they stick.

If you missed it, part of the intention of my post was: everyone can make their own decision on what to buy, and, it is fine for Lazer to make the choice not to spend more than 30 Euro for a sheet of rubber. I fully support someone making that kind of decision and for an adult who has other responsibilities, it might be an intelligent choice. The equipment is not really going to change your level that much.

I know a guy who can beat someone of average club level play with:

1) the sole of a shoe (AKA: sneaker or trainer depending on where you come from).
2) the same guy can beat most people on the low end of club level with a block of wood and/or a giant lollipop which is about half the size of a normal blade.

I also know a few people who are pretty good playing with a stool, a rock, a frying pan, a cell phone.....

It is also worth reading the thread on the new rules for table tennis:

New Rules for Table Tennis

The rule quoted below is worth understanding.

Baal;290725
This is the definitive compilation of the Rules for Table Tennis as delivered by the Table Tennis Gods, not the mere ITTF. See the rest of the thread for further commentary.

27. While it is allowed and perhaps even mandated to own an insane number of blades (see rule 20), it is not allowed to believe that the next one you buy will appreciably improve your level.

EJing is fine. Buying equipment at whatever price you want is fine, as long as you can afford it. But it won't significantly change your level.

It is okay for the people who want to buy Dignics or Tenergy to buy it. It is okay for the people who want to buy rubbers that cost under 30$ to do that.

It is simple to see that table tennis rubbers do sell at inflated prices and some are okay with that and others might not be so okay with that.