“Why does this cost so much?”
Or as someone else put it in a Facebook comment:
We got a good laugh from that comment– we don’t think we’re assholes, but that’s for you to decide. If we are, we don’t believe it’s because of our pricing.
We pride ourselves on delivering a great product at a fair price, but it’s not cheap creating a great product and doing so responsibly. In our opinions, as a manufacturer, one sure way to be an f-ing asshole to the environment, to the people that help create your products, and to you the end customer, is to create cheap throw-away products that are cranked out just to make a buck.
So, back to the question of what drives the price of our products:
- Creating a product that will last costs. We use only high quality materials that are also environmentally responsible; and source or design hardware that will stand up to your globe-trotting ways for years and years.
- Standing behind what we create and sell costs. We stand behind every bag with a satisfaction and lifetime guarantee. The cheaper way to go is to sell a product with a short or non-existent refund policy.
- Responsibly-sourced costs. We ensure we pay fair wages and only work with top notch manufacturing partners that value people and the environment the same way we do.
- Details, details, details. You would probably be blown away (or at least extremely bored) sitting in on one of our design reviews in which we nitpick the tiniest details in an effort to make sure every thread and detail is done properly. This takes time and therefore money.
- It may just be another product to some, but each Pakt product requires A LOT of effort to create, refine and produce. The Pakt One for example is made up of almost 300 individual components (everything from each zipper pull and label to pieces of fabric cut to be assembled), and requires over 200 steps to assemble (each step of the assembly line).
Most of our peers have a full product line with multiple bags, and there’s no way they could afford to put as much effort into each of those bags as we have with our products. We choose to grow intentionally, giving each product the necessary time and attention required to deliver a perfect product that we could be proud of for everything that went into making it.
So TL;DR– the retail price of our products simply reflects the cost of responsibly creating products of this caliber in a way that will allow us to provide long-term support as a brand that stands behind what we sell. We could certainly cut corners, but that’s not the way we do things around here. We appreciate all of you that also appreciate doing things this way.
We’d love to know if this added any clarity and welcome thoughts on the pricing topic and anything else. If you have thoughts please share them, and we’ll keep the conversation going.
