Is it possible for a high end manufacturer to overprice their goods?

I think you are answering your own question: are there people out there who will pay more than the company thinks people will pay for its product? As long as diamonds and designer bags sell, men will pay for their own toys stupid sums. 

This industry may be the exception to the rule, but in most sales based industries, if one prices the product too high, the result is simply a no sale situation. I believe this applies to luxury items, but perhaps there are exceptions to this rule…and maybe high end gear falls under that category. Do we believe this?  
Certainly it would seem that there are a number of folks in the high end industry that do.

Follow the yellow brick road

My daughter is a freshman business student.  I am a physicist.  She called me for help with calculus.  She was doing the standard first calculus problems for first and second level integration and differentiation.  In physics we do x, v, and a  (position, velocity, and acceleration).  In business they have a similar set of equations that we used to calculate the price point that maximized revenues.  Of course we had to have a demand vs price curve.  So in business theory, the price point where revenue will be maximized based on unit sales and price is easy to calculate.

@hilde45

Very good points. Well stated.

I think it is interesting to point out that, typically, "high end" audio is sold thru a dealer nietwork. So?

The dealer is the manufacturer’s "customer". And, the end user is the dealer’s "customer". While the manufuacturer is on "stand by" for tech support, etc. it is the dealer who displays, demos, delivers, sets up, and supports the end user. The dealer, being the "customer" also has to make smart decisions about what he purchases. The dealer must determine if a product has a high degree of certainty for sell through or he will be stuck with it. Or, risk selling it below what he paid for it. The penalties for the dealer for bad choices could be severe. So, there’s another "value proposition" in the equation, whereby, the dealer must (literally) buy in to the propostion. No dealer orders. No sales to end users. The manufacturer must FIRST convince the dealer that the product is worth the money. Then, it’s the dealer’s job to create value in the product to the end user. So, there’s another cost/performance filter (the dealer) in the mix before the product is presented to the end user.

From an economic perspective, the dealer pays wholesale costs, so the manufacturer’s selling price to the dealer is far south of the $133k the customer pays.. I am thinking about presenting a topic somthing like The Myth of Manufacturer and Dealer "Profits" to take a deep(er) dive into this subject. To this point, let’s take, as an example, a major contributor to the design team who makes $200k per year (could be low?). If the manufacture sells 2 million of the item, that’s $10 of the retail cost of the item for engineering. When only 200 are built, that’s $1,000 of engineering costs of the retail cost for each item. Some end users place a lot attention on parts costs vs retail priicing. Okay. Fair enough. But what about services we obtain that are purely intellectual with no parts costs? Should attorneys, consultants, etc. offer their work for free becuase their "parts costs" are free? It doesn’t take long to see how silly the parts cost vs selling price argument is. So, what is a product segment’s most gifted designer’s talent worth relative to the ultimate selling price? This is hard (impossible) to measure.