WILSON AUDIO/ cost vs. value


wilson ad; absolute sound;issue 162. page 12.... dave wilson states in his ad that wilson loudspeakers have one of the [ lowest ] profit margins in the industry. My question is should wilson make public their profit margin percentage's to back up their claims or is this more hyperbole from a high-end audio manufacturer...
aolmrd1241
hello- macrojack; I see you understand the heart of the question as opposed to name brand loyality, thanks for the reasonable imput concerning cost vs. value as was the intention of the thread...
Macrojack...

Thank you for the economics lesson again.

The original question was

"My question is should wilson make public their profit margin percentage's to back up their claims or is this more hyperbole from a high-end audio manufacturer..."

My answers are No they should not make public their profit margin percentage's...and yes it is just more hyperbole....it seems to be the way of advertising today...make any claims you want with out any back up

Mr Wilson has been critized for trying to lead us to believe, without supplying enough information, why do you feel your Typical model applies here without knowing anything about how his company is structured?

Here is an example of excess Cost vs. Value that supports your profit model

Radio Shack speaker wire has been rated as a best buy at 19.99 per 100' roll or $0.1999 per foot.
Zu Cable (I use this because of the previous refferences on this thread, and also because they include price on their website) sells speaker cable at 23.93 (their cheapest) per foot. That is a difference of $23.73 per foot "WOW"
I know that this is wrong, I do not have enough information so it is just supposition. Which is what the context of this post was about.
Question to Macrojack: Does the 1/5 of MSRP refer to COGS alone? What exactly is included? Before we can declare that his margin is 67% (12k/18K), we need to consider such costs as warranty expense, shipping (not trivial on Wilson speakers), sales and marketing as well as other G&A expenses. When it gets to profit that falls to the bottom line and accrues to the owners, I expect it's a much smaller number than $12K per WATT/Puppy.
883dave-
The post immediately preceeding yours would indicate that I responded in the manner sought by the original poster. That, however, is the only comment you offer with which I disagree.
But, while you are factually accurate, in your cable comparison, I'm pretty sure the analogy wasn't quite parallel.
Radio Shack is selling some sort of raw cable and the Zu product is terminated. I don't know what this means in precise numbers but it seems to equate to a comparison between the price of raw drivers from company A and the price of finished speakers from company Z.
How Wilson's company is structured addresses what happens to the profits more than how great they were.

OVER.....
Miccrojack between Zu on Zu and this thread: do you have any time to listen to your rig? lol... :)