Rebottling An Ink And Jacking Up The Price By 50% What A Nice Line Of Business

[lgsoltek]

After Montblanc and Sailor, J. Herbin has done it as well.

 

The 1670 inks (Rouge Hématite, etc.) now come in the 1798 bottles (Améthyste de l'Oural, etc.), same volume (50ml), wider opening, and a 50%+ price hike (21.50 EUR vs 14.00 EUR).

 

Bravo! What a nice line of business.

 

 

For your information:

 

Montblanc:

- then 30ml square bottles at 14.80 EUR (0.49 EUR/ml),

- now 50ml square bottles at 35.60 EUR (0.71 EUR/ml).

- 44% more expensive.

 

Sailor:

- then 50ml Four Seasons at 1080 JPY (21.60 JPY/ml),

- now 20ml Four Seasons at 1080 JPY (54.00 JPY/ml),

- 150% more expensive.

[Karmachanic]

Non essential items. Plenty of other reasonably priced inks out there.

YD aside Four Seasons inks are still widely available in 50ml bottles, at the old price. Stock up if so inclined.

I have the feeling that after the moaning is over people will continue to purchase these inks.

[A Smug Dill]

Of the Four Seasons inks, yozakura, yodaki, yonaga and shimoyo were never available in 50ml bottles. I strongly doubt you'll be able to find many of the first sixteen other colours in the (now) Shikiori range in 50ml bottles at the ¥1,000 (exclusive of tax) per-bottle price; the only stock that I can see being available for online ordering at that pricing level is for doyou, fuji-musume, waka-uguisu, irori, and maybe sakura-mori and yuki-akari if you're lucky.

 

If someone is paying about A$35 per 50ml bottle because, say, Australian stockists have been selling it at that price as "the old price", then he/she may as well just order the new 20ml bottles directly shipped from Japan and enjoy roughly the same effective per-millilitre price. The only well-known online retailer I could find that is still selling most colours in 50ml bottles "at the old price" of below US$13 per bottle, without significant markup, is in Malaysia, and I wouldn't conclude that such would constitute "still widely available".

[lgsoltek]

Of the Four Seasons inks, yozakura, yodaki, yonaga and shimoyo were never available in 50ml bottles. I strongly doubt you'll be able to find many of the first sixteen other colours in the (now) Shikiori range in 50ml bottles at the ¥1,000 (exclusive of tax) per-bottle price; the only stock that I can see being available for online ordering at that pricing level is for doyou, fuji-musume, waka-uguisu, irori, and maybe sakura-mori and yuki-akari if you're lucky.

 

If someone is paying about A$35 per 50ml bottle because, say, Australian stockists have been selling it at that price as "the old price", then he/she may as well just order the new 20ml bottles directly shipped from Japan and enjoy roughly the same effective per-millilitre price. The only well-known online retailer I could find that is still selling most colours in 50ml bottles "at the old price" of below US$13 per bottle, without significant markup, is in Malaysia, and I wouldn't conclude that such would constitute "still widely available".

 

 

The markup by global distributors due to taxes, shipping, logistics, etc. is NOT of concern here. I'm talking about the price set by the manufacturer (domestically). The reference on the Sailor price as sold in Japan comes from the series of blog posts on Crónicas Estilográficas (eg. this).

[TheDutchGuy]

For many reasons, I don't really care. Some of these reasons are:

-The total global market for fountain pens and inks is small to begin with (it's a non-essential luxury item) and splintered over many different brands. It's not an easy market at all.

-In my personal opinion, Sailor inks are of exceptional quality. If they were ever cheap, I'm grateful for that (they didn't have to be cheap). If they are now expensive, then I consider it a case of premium price for a premium product.

-Most serious fountain pen aficionados have quite a few pens and inks, and rotate them. So a bottle will likely last a long time, even a small bottle. Case in point is my 20mL Shikiori Yonaga bottle. I bought it, fell totally in love with it, and out of fear of running out I ordered another one. That was a year ago and that first bottle is still not finished. Same with my spare bottles of Waterman Mysterious Blue and Herbin Bleu Nuit. They're just sitting there, waiting for the first bottle to be finished. I can't remember when I last finished a full-sized bottle (samples excluded).

-There are many inks out there of good quality and reasonable pricing. Waterman, Diamine and the regular J Herbin ranges come to mind.

[A Smug Dill]

The reference on the Sailor price as sold in Japan comes from the series of blog posts on Crónicas Estilográficas (eg. this).

I can only find irori (from 3 distinct sellers), doyou (2), fuji-musume (2), nioi-sumire (1) and chu-shu (1) still being offered at ~¥1,000 (excluding tax and delivery charges) per 50ml bottle on Rakuten's Japanese site just now, and not all of them will ship internationally. I'd hardly call that "widely available ... at the old price".

[jmccarty3]

The Jacques Herbin web site does not ship to the US.

[senzen]

Well there's two sides in a market, it also depends how many people are willing to pay these prices... I already ignored Montblanc lest I actually like a limited edition ink and be doomed to pay through the nose. I am really enjoying my two Jacques Herbin inks but they were gifts, and even though I restocked Rouge Hematite, it's a ridiculously high maintenance ink, clogs up every single pen I've thrown at it... They could increase or decrease the price ten times over I couldn't recommend it in good conscience.

 

For a dead medium, fountain pens and their accessories are a surprisingly lively market, in that as consumers we have plenty of choices, even if not local ones; I can only shake my head and smile at these price increases, I can just imagine the scene as they all hired a business consultant who began spouting about synergies, pivoting and ultimately milking customers.

[white_lotus]

The vast majority of what is in a bottle of ink is water. It should be inexpensive.

 

I've stopped buying inks. I have so many already. I don't need any more ink. But if I did start running through bottles of ink and needed more, I could always buy Noodler's. 90 ml bottles, $12.50 retail. In the US at least, other places may not be so fortunate.

[TSherbs]

....I can only shake my head and smile at these price increases, I can just imagine the scene as they all hired a business consultant who began spouting about synergies, pivoting and ultimately milking customers.

Stick it in a fancy little bottle and call it magic...

[A Smug Dill]

The vast majority of what is in a bottle of ink is water. It should be inexpensive.

Water is an inexpensive ingredient, yes. However, one cannot reasonably jump to any conclusions about the total cost of production – including other physical ingredients, costs of implementing and maintaining the factory and/or production line, labour costs, etc. – and logistics, to then say the finished product "should be inexpensive" from the consumer's point of view.

 

Obviously ink manufacturers are profiteering if they suddenly increase the prices overnight by a relative 50%, 100% or even 200%, when it is inconceivable that their costs have increased by an equal proportion.

 

That still does not mean consumer have any entitlement to enjoy continued "inexpensive" prices or broad availability of non-essential items in a free market.

[wallylynn]

I vaguely remember something like this when MB switched from the shoe bottle to the box bottle, 60 ml to 50 ml? I assume there was a price increase too, can't remember. I bought my BlBk IG as a special treat then. I thought that was expensive. I'd never imagine ink being these prices.

 

The vast majority of what is in a bottle of ink is water. It should be inexpensive.

The vast majority of FP is plastic. They should also be inexpensive too.

[A Smug Dill]

The active ingredients in most medicines only constitute less than 2%, by mass or by volume, of the end product. Does everyone then expect only to pay consumer prices that are commensurate with the pharmaceutical companies' costs of procuring and/or producing the active ingredients, because the other >98% of what is tangible in the finished product is 'inexpensive'?

 

Why have that expectation of fountain pen inks, when inks are far less essential to most people than medicines?

[bass1193]

Smug Dill, pharmaceuticals are massively overpriced, even taking into account the cost of R&D. Consider offering another example, because you come off as a Shkreli fanboy fitting your username perfectly.

 

Edited a typo. Thank you autocorrect 😂

Edited October 21, 2018 by bass1193

[TSherbs]

Ink companies can charge all they want and we can moan and villify all we want. Personally, I have not tried an ink costing over $25/bottle. That seems alot to me and barely "worth" it. These specialty inks that are super expensive seem frivolous to me, but that's what my family thinks about every one of my pens that costs more than a G2.

[ErrantSmudge]

Companies have been downsizing the amount in the package while keeping the same price for many years, for things like snack foods, coffee and other consumer goods. This is nothing new.

[A Smug Dill]

Joe Consumer – which is the group with which I personally identify, as opposed to wage-earner, investor, industrialist, etc. – are sources of business revenue, whose material wants should be understood by producers and suppliers in the market in order to best satisfy them while helping them part with money. We're not the intended primary beneficiaries of capitalism or 'progress' in the market.

 

Consider offering another example,

No need, because the example I gave aptly captures what I want to convey. Without ink, your (and my) 'fine', fancy and/or cherished writing instruments of choice won't work, but that's not anyone else's concern.

 

There is no right or wrong, fairness or injustice, in this. If you want something you have to keep working and keep delivering value to you, then you'll decide the price you're prepared to pay for 'consumables', and that's not a question of the cost of ingredients and/or production from the manufacturers' end.

 

Ink companies can charge all they want and we can moan and villify all we want. Personally, I have not tried an ink costing over $25/bottle. That seems alot to me and barely "worth" it. These specialty inks that are super expensive seem frivolous to me, but that's what my family thinks about every one of my pens that costs more than a G2.

Most commercially available inks cost A$25 or more per 50ml bottle retail here in Australia from local stockists, if you can get what you specifically want at all. Edited October 21, 2018 by A Smug Dill

[Karmachanic]

If one waits long enough the ink will be worth more than the fiat used to purchase it. Buy more ink!

[Olya]

I just can't find excuses for over-pricing goods, be they luxury or not. To me fpens or pens in generally are very far from being a "dead medium" as well.

This isn't even a price-hike like some luxury companies do annually to stay unobtainable (looking at you Chanel!), with the usual 10% or whatever they set for themselves. A 100% price-hike is completely inexcusable. In Sailor's case, the 4 seasons inks sold in Japan at the same price as the standard ones, but in Europe already had a luxury price tag. Now the prices have exploded even worse, but this time to the same price domestically (i.e. in Japan) and abroad.

 

Medicine is ridiculously overpriced. Also when you compare the same model watch steel vs gold, the gold model has a luxury hike not comparable to the cost in material, same with gold vs steel nibbed pens (except in Japan, where the pricing of pens is a lot more reasonable than in Europe, esp those with gold nibs).

Fpens as a whole are overpriced as well, very much so. Plastic and a thin sheet of metal.

 

And no one needs to argue with "artisan" or "handcrafted". This excuse is often used when people talk about Hermes handbags. There is/ was a handbag maker who used to work for big brands (he isn't allowed to say for which) and then went independent. He crafted bags from the finest materials, all by hand and all by oldfashioned methods, creating truly magnificent pieces for which even a noob could easily make out that these were quality handbags. These bags were affordable!! Sure you couldn't purge on them like you can in H&M or Zara, but they were certainly affordable.

 

And ink that is mostly water and we know for the most part what else goes in them, to be priced this obnoxiously? Just no. With these companies it's become cheaper to use disposable gels!!

[Karmachanic]

Continue to buy these inks, or not. Change is constant.

Accepting things as they are is less painful than raging against change. Or the dying of the light.

 

to add: Shigure, Nioi-Simure, Souten, Tokoiwa-Matsu, Murai, Do-you, Oku-Yama are still available in 50ml bottles.

https://global.rakuten.com/en/store/auc-youstyle/item/sl-13-9257/

Edited October 21, 2018 by Karmachanic