Carnauba wax costs

J

jvcn

New member
I hope this question isn't too impolitic but this whole blending stuff has gotten me to think:



How much is the raw materials cost of the better waxes?



Now, I am not claiming that there aren't marketing costs, and that the better waxes don't earn their profits for coming up with special, proprietary blends.



I'm just curious because so many waxes make a big deal about Carnauba content and its high cost. Yet I find that pure #1 yellow carnauba sells for under $10/lb at retail. Presumably the manufacturers can get it for much less than that. Barring the mythical white carnauba that no one can find, and that can't seem to be bought raw by anyone other than certain European companies [assuming it's not just good #1 yellow] carnauba content shouldn't affect the final cost of a boutique wax.



It would seem that above $20 a jar (assuming 8 oz jars) that carnauba content should have no more bearing on the final cost of the wax than any other ingredient or process.



Maybe I'm just mistaken and the raw materials cost of even the $40 waxes are on the order of fifty cents, so an extra dollar cost adds 20 to the final price. But otherwise I just assume that claiming high Carnauba content as an excuse for high price is pure marketing.



Am I full of it? I'll be happy to be corrected as I'm genuinely curious.
 
There are more than material costs - the plant (building), machinery, environmental compliance, insurance, labor, advertising, taxes, shipping, etc.



Material costs are but one small part of the equation.
 
forrest said:
There are more than material costs - the plant (building), machinery, environmental compliance, insurance, labor, advertising, taxes, shipping, etc.



Material costs are but one small part of the quuation.
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Forgot Packaging...hehehehe
 
Sorry, you're correct. I didn't mean to ignore all these. But these are mostly fixed costs.



I guess what I'm asking is: Aside from marketing and hype, is there any reason to think that a wax in the same line should cost more just because it has more Carnauba?



For example, if Wax A already is $30 a can and wax B from the same brand is $45 a can and the company touts its Carnauba content as going from 20% to 40%, you would presume the Carnauba explains part of the price difference. But me, I think it's just hype. I wanted someone to give me a good argument why it's NOT just marketing bs.
 
It's not just the ingredients, it's machinery/manpower/etc. that isn't being used *for something else*.



Whether the costs are fixed or variable, they have to be spread over the volume of production so perhaps "economies of scale" factor in. If you're not gonna sell as much high-carnauba (or whatever else makes it "special") wax you won't have as many units to spread the costs over. You're never gonna sell as much "expensive"/"special" wax as you will cheap/"regular" stuff, so the expensive ones stay expensive. Enough people *do* buy the expensive stuff to justify its production but only at that elevated price.



But when you get into the *really* expensive waxes (such as the Zymol Estate line) IMO the prices do not reflect anything except what the (very limited) market will bear.



And *IMO* as long as somebody finds some reason to prefer a product enough to pay whatever it costs, it's not really BS. Marketing hype only goes so far, at some point people actually use a product and then decide whether it was worth the cost or not. If they like a wax enough to pay a few hunder dollars ( :eek: ) for it, OK, it's their money and I'm glad somebody is catering to their wants. Some people always :nono about how other people spend their money, or time or whatever, and yeah, I get sorta touchy about it- so sorry if I sound like I'm ranting again :o
 
"But when you get into the *really* expensive waxes (such as the Zymol Estate line) IMO the prices do not reflect anything except what the (very limited) market will bear."



True and remarkably in my experience with the Zymol Destiny and Atlantique waxes the performance is simply not there.
 
SilverLexus said:
..remarkably in my experience with the Zymol Destiny and Atlantique waxes the performance is simply not there.
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I believe it. But then there are people who swear by those so :nixweiss To each their own huh?



Some cars really do respond to certain products, so I try to keep an open mind (but as the saying goes, not so open that my brain falls out).



Gotta say that I'd like to try one of those on the Jag sometime except that the whole *literally by hand* application thing just isn't gonna happen with me. No improvement in the look (over, say, Souveran) would justify that sort of hassle *for me* otherwise I'd be asking for somebody to gimme a sample to try out.
 
I didn't want to get into the question of "Is it worth it?"



I just wanted to know if there were some objective (non-preference) reason for the higher cost. And your answer seems to be, No.



Thx.



Of course if someone wants to pay $15,000 for a can of salad oil that's properly branded, who I am to judge.



But to me there is a difference between, say, a luxury car company charging an extra $5000 for leather seats that might only cost $500 to install but that still cost more to install vs. charging extra for more carnauba that should not increase the cost of production at all.



Again, each to his own. I just wanted to learn.
 
jvcn said:
... you would presume the Carnauba explains part of the price difference. But me, I think it's just hype. I wanted someone to give me a good argument why it's NOT just marketing bs.
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I can't argue the specifics of any waxes but I can think of some other manufacturing examples.



If other ingredients must be added in proportion to the material in question, and they are very expensive, the material cost would rise proportionally.



If a change in the ingredients causes a change in product characteristics that subsequently requires more extensive or costly processing the overall cost goes up disproportionately.



For example, an alloy of 94.5% Titanium, 3% Aluminum and 2.5% Vanadium is very popular for building spacecraft and racing bicycles (usually called 3/2.5Ti). If you want to go to the stronger 6% Al alloy you might think it would be cheaper because Al is less than a third the cost of Ti. Unfortunately you also have to go to 4% V, which is more than 30x as expensive as Ti and more than 100x as expensive as Al per pound. Beyond that, if you are making tubing 3/2.5Ti can be extruded. 6/4Ti can't be extruded and must be sheet forged, roll formed and seam welded. Needless to say, 6/4Ti tubing is much more expensive than 3/2.5Ti even though it has a higher percentage of cheaper Al.



If secondary processing is required for some raw material, liquefying, filtering, extracting, etc then any costs associated with the extra processes will be proportional the volume of raw material consumed. Depending on the processes this could be a large multiplier. (For severe examples Deuterium synthesis and Uranium enrichment come to mind.)



It could also be that expensive waxes come from very small manufacturers using very inefficient small scale processes and, having to a spend big wad on marketing, jack up the price to whatever they can get away with. As long as enough customers finds value in it what the heck.





PC.
 
jvcn said:
I didn't want to get into the question of "Is it worth it?"



I just wanted to know if there were some objective (non-preference) reason for the higher cost. And your answer seems to be, No.
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Sorry, with all my OT editorializing :o I must have obscured my real (relevant) answer.



Originally posted by Accumulator before he went OT



It's not just the ingredients, it's machinery/manpower/etc. that isn't being used *for something else*.



Whether the costs are fixed or variable, they have to be spread over the volume of production so perhaps "economies of scale" factor in. If you're not gonna sell as much high-carnauba (or whatever else makes it "special") wax you won't have as many units to spread the costs over. You're never gonna sell as much "expensive"/"special" wax as you will cheap/"regular" stuff, so the expensive ones stay expensive. Enough people *do* buy the expensive stuff to justify its production but only at that elevated price.
Click to expand...



So actually, I do think the higher prices are often justified. Within reason, though.



As I'm possibly just wasting bandwidth again I better quit posting on this one!
 
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