Why is the Pilot Prera so expensive?

[GV Penn]

I love my Pilot Prera. It writes amazing, looks good, is well balanced, and the capping mechanism is so satisfying. Still, the Prera's price tag seems expensive relative to Pilot's other steel nib pens.

 

The Pilot Prera costs about $35 in Japan and $55 in the US.

 

The Penmanship ($10), Kakuno ($12), Metropolitan ($19), and Explorer ($23) use the same nib and feed as the Prera but are less expensive. Both the Prera and Kakuno are plastic pens and made of similarly durable materials. It seems like they should be a similar price. The Metropolitan is made of metal so it seems like that should be more expensive.

 

My only guess for the price differences is for Pilot's marketing. The Kakuno is made for kids so a lower price makes sense. The Metropolitan might be a loss-leader hoping to get people to buy more expensive pens later (it worked on me). Then the Prera and Explorer seem to fit a similar market, but the Prera still costs more.

 

So my question is: Why is the Prera so expensive relative to these other pens?

[Sailor Kenshin]

1. More elegant-looking

2. Comes in many colors

3. Demonstrator models

4. Cool cap click

 

Or possibly other factors….

[Paul-in-SF]

A combination of marketing and what people are willing to pay for it. If Pilot found it wasn't selling at their price, they would either lower the price (if they could still sell it profitably) or discontinue it. 

 

Also what Sailor Kenshin said. It looks like a "regular" pen rather than a starter pen.

[A Smug Dill]

2 hours ago, GV Penn said:

Both the Prera and Kakuno are plastic pens and made of similarly durable materials. It seems like they should be a similar price. The Metropolitan is made of metal so it seems like that should be more expensive.

 

I disagree with the purported "should". You're talking about consumer retail there, of a non-essential type of item no less. The price "should" be far more heavily influenced by supply and demand (including in view of competition from substitutable products) in the market, than an accounting of Pilot's (manufacturing, distribution, and even marketing, etc.) costs of supply.

 

Using a 'teardown' of physical components and focusing on material cost, as a baseline for estimating the value (from the perspective of the end-users at large) or worth (from the perspective of buyers who have the prerogative to decide whether to part with money in exchange), and perhaps arbitrarily adding some fixed profit margin of x% as being categorical and/or reasonable for the manufacturer, is not sound commercial logic. That's really just a materialist's fancy; and requesting some sort of explanation "why" market reality doesn't align with one's oh-so-reasonable expectation, is not what a consumer "should" be doing, in my opinion as a consumer (and as a business analyst by trade). 

[Ron Z]

For what its worth, the Prera/Metropolitan/Explorer nib fits into a Wing Sung 3003 perfectly.  Not that their nibs are bad, but I have a Prera nib (barrel cracked) that is really fine that I put in one.  You can buy 5 of them for about $3 each on Ebay.  Its no secret that I like the 3003, and the one with the Pilot nib is used for margin notes or technical sketching.

[GV Penn]

20 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

I disagree with the purported "should". You're talking about consumer retail there, of a non-essential type of item no less. The price "should" be far more heavily influenced by supply and demand (including in view of competition from substitutable products) in the market, than an accounting of Pilot's (manufacturing, distribution, and even marketing, etc.) costs of supply.

 

Using a 'teardown' of physical components and focusing on material cost, as a baseline for estimating the value (from the perspective of the end-users at large) or worth (from the perspective of buyers who have the prerogative to decide whether to part with money in exchange), and perhaps arbitrarily adding some fixed profit margin of x% as being categorical and/or reasonable for the manufacturer, is not sound commercial logic. That's really just a materialist's fancy; and requesting some sort of explanation "why" market reality doesn't align with one's oh-so-reasonable expectation, is not what a consumer "should" be doing, in my opinion as a consumer (and as a business analyst by trade). 

 

Thanks for the reply! I get what you're saying about not using costs to determine the price of the pens which I mentioned in my original post. Obviously Pilot can do what they want. I'm just curious about how they make their pricing decisions. For example, I know airlines have sophisticated algorithms to predict demand for flights and they also monitor competitors prices. The pen market isn't as fluid, but they must have some research to set pricing.

 

As a business analyst, I suppose you have an educated guess. Why do you think Pilot sets prices the way they do? Do you think the Prera has more demand and less supply than the other pens (especially the Explorer), and if so, why?

[GV Penn]

33 minutes ago, Paul-in-SF said:

A combination of marketing and what people are willing to pay for it. If Pilot found it wasn't selling at their price, they would either lower the price (if they could still sell it profitably) or discontinue it. 

 

Also what Sailor Kenshin said. It looks like a "regular" pen rather than a starter pen.

Thanks! This makes a lot of sense. Just basic supply and demand.

[amberleadavis]

I was so disappointed by the Preras that I have made them one of the gift pens. I think they are really overpriced for what they are.  I guess one extra expense could be the converter, but I don't recall if that was an extra charge or not.

 

Will the Prera nib fit in the other Pilots?

 

 

And hey, welcome aboard!

[GV Penn]

2 minutes ago, amberleadavis said:

I was so disappointed by the Preras that I have made them one of the gift pens. I think they are really overpriced for what they are.  I guess one extra expense could be the converter, but I don't recall if that was an extra charge or not.

 

Will the Prera nib fit in the other Pilots?

 

 

And hey, welcome aboard!

Sorry to hear you were disappointed by the Prera. The Prera nib fits in the Explorer, Metropolitan, Kakuno, and Penmanship pens. The nibs and feeds are friction fit and can be swapped easily.

Edited April 5, 2022 by GV Penn

[amberleadavis]

Just now, GV Penn said:

Sorry to hear you were disappointed by the Prera. The Prera nib fits in the Explorer, Metropolitan, Kakuno, and Penmanship pens. The nibs and feeds are friction fit and can be swapped easily.

 

 

Okay, I'm going to try it! Thank you!

[PotbellyPig]

I thout the Prera was supposed to hav a higher quality feel to than the Kakuno but I never tried it myself.  What’s the best Pilot pen body to put a Kakuno nib and feed in these days in terms of build quality of the pen body?

[Sailor Kenshin]

I love my Preras.  Maybe it's the clicky cap.

[jandrese]

Pricing is one of the hardest, most intractable things in business. To understand would have to ask Pilot and the local distributor and retailer. Their explanations may not even make sense or there could be cultural misunderstandings. It's difficult.  

 

Here is something wild for you to wrap your brain around. Evidently, Namiki only charges cost of production for their nibs. Profit on the pens comes from the value add of the artwork. It's a weird, wonderful world.

[A Smug Dill]

28 minutes ago, GV Penn said:

As a business analyst, I suppose you have an educated guess.

 

Not necessarily more than the next person. I worked in the entertainment ticketing and the telecommunications industries, so my views are more inclined towards, ”My costs of production and supply is none of the end-consumer's business for assessing what is a reasonable price.” How much the star of a show or a concert is being paid, how much it costs to build the sets for a production, to operate the facilities for a single performance, to hire the venue for the event or run, to pay for ushers, security, cleaning (in the pandemic era or otherwise), etc. are largely irrelevant to the price of a ticket; and the consumer “should”, or would, be more concerned about where in the theatre or stadium they're seated, which night of the week they're attending, and so on in assessing whether they're prepared to pay the asking (or final) price. Similarly, the price of a mobile phone handset, and the price of a phone call, to the consumer are not closely related to the cost of producing a unit of the electronic device or the cost of building and operating the network infrastructure.

 

45 minutes ago, GV Penn said:

Why do you think Pilot sets prices the way they do?

 

I would not hazard a guess as to why Pilot makes certain business decisions in regional markets (and that includes in the US, the UK, and Australia where I live).

 

47 minutes ago, GV Penn said:

Do you think the Prera has more demand and less supply than the other pens (especially the Explorer), and if so, why?

 

The Cocoon (i.e. MR Metropolitan — not just “Metropolitan” — in other markets) and the Prera are the same price in the Japanese domestic market. They're adult pens, but not really marketed as respectable every-day-carry pens for “salarymen”, never mind professionals. Whereas the Kaküno is a “school pen”, and particularly (and deliberately) cheapened in its image by the smiley faces laser-etched on the nibs; the retail price is constrained by what “average” parents would be willing to pay for items that are apt to be damaged or lost time and again by their children, but the lower profit margin per unit is made up for by much higher expected sales volume compared to the adult pens. The transparent Prera iro-ai (which, as far as I know, are the only models in the Prera product line officially distributed in the West) with translucent coloured finials is priced a bit higher, but the purported value-add from the end-user's perspective is primarily in ‘cute’ aesthetic appeal for which fans — and teenaged-and-older everyday shoppers who have their own discretionary spending money — would be expected to be willing to pay, and only nominally in the inclusion of a CON-40 converter that isn't supplied in the retail product of the opaque Prera models.

 

I don't recall whether the Explorer as such was ever released in the Japanese domestic market. I'll note that there is a Lightive product, which is marked as “new”, in the list of current products on Pilot's Japanese website, and it looks awfully like an Explorer to me. The way I see it, the shape, material, and construction of the Explorer/Lightive are designed to look only a tiny bit better than disposable non-refillable pens, and compete with what occupies the low-end everyday stationery category of products in the market. It's double the retail price of a Kaküno; but two-thirds that of a Cocoon or (opaque) Prera, which I don't think anyone would “mistaken” for or classify as a disposable consumer product.

 

If you look at Sailor, whose Lecoule is I think the Prera's direct competition in both presentation and retail price, the Profit Jr. is offered at two-thirds the price of the Lecoule, but I bet the production and distribution costs for both models are almost identical; and they're really just the same pen with (the same type of nib, same body material, and same construction, but) different shapes.

[amberleadavis]

OH, but the reason I bought Preras instead of the others, the NIB. Now that Sailor has calligraphy nibs in beginner pens, I guess I should try those too.

[A Smug Dill]

1 minute ago, amberleadavis said:

OH, but the reason I bought Preras instead of the others, the NIB.

 

Then perhaps you'd want to get a Pilot Enso Plumix set, which comes with Fine, Medium, and Broad italic nibs.