why do you need a 48" unit? do you have 300lbs of food on hand? i have a 22cuft unit and a 14ft freezer so i suppose i am close to that. you think the european manufacturers will lower the us price when the euro drops? how exactly are we going to make them do that?

I bet most people buying a 48" JennAir fridge in 2007 paid far more than $4588.

I agree with you that a lot of these high end appliances are way overpriced for what they are, but I don't see the point in targeting the European manufacturers. The American scene is just as bad. There's SubZero/Wolf, Dacor, Viking, Capital, Bluestar, and American Range, and I'm not even including the American manufacturers who got bought out by foreign companies.

This post was edited by hvtech42 on Mon, Jan 26, 15 at 12:06

Good point hvtech42, but in this case I singled out the Euro manufacturers because "Not long ago", they increased appliance prices due to a "Weak Dollar",
well if the dollar is stronger now, shouldn't the "reverse" happen~~IE, lower prices, ya thinks?

A perfect example of what I'm talking about, KA has a new $2000 dishwasher,
guess what will happen to that or at least its price, if nobody "Salutes the Price"
that "KA raised up the pole"~~~Yes A La SZ!

You know the Canadians get ripped off even worse than we do, and some of them buy their appliances in the US in an effort to "Fight Back" high prices.(Well, at least higher prices in Canada).

Some of our US folks that "Must Have" The Gags and Mieles, find deals on Ebay and Craig's List, and to those folks, I say, "Well done" at least you are fighting the battle!!!!!

Now I never said I was a "perfect Example" of what "I think", we should do.
After all I did buy a Miele DW for about $1300 in 2006, but I was soooo tired of digging in that stupid cutlery basket in the old KA and grabbing the "business end" of a knife, more than once, so that Top cutlery tray was a "must have" back in 2006!!!.
Miele was the only DW that had that back in 2006.

Just recently I paid $7000 for Slemens hearing aids, (German).
I spent weeks on the net researching hearing aids, and I wanted good ones,
(ya know to keep the wife happy) and also not wanting to replace them in a year or 2.

So probably not one of my better decisions, and like the rest of us here, I don't always make "Perfect Purchasing Decisions" but at least I try, as some of you do!!!

Gary

PS, even with my new hearing aids, I can hear my Electrolux wine fridge running, but try as I Might, I still can not hear the JA fridge running, (for those of you that were wondering about my hearing).

Yes, I, too, feel that the price increases on the Euro-based appliances are a rip off--especially the increases that went into effect this year, even though the dollar has strengthened somewhat. Then again, maybe everybody's currency is fairly worthless these days.

Sub-Zero is raising their prices about 5% at the end of February.

The reason why more fridges haven't copied the crank shelves you like is probably that there isn't a demand for them. When I got my fridge, I rearranged the heights to suit my needs, changed one a few weeks later, and now just have to count the holes carefully while cleaning to get them back exactly where I like them. No crank needed.

Gary, remember your Econ 101. Something is worth exactly what someone is willing to pay for it. You don't see vendors doing inventory clearance sales on high end appliances. The most you'll get in terms of adjustment of price is a free dishwasher with a large order. That's when there's a bit less demand. When there's more, there are no such deals. The manufacturers don't have economies of scale with the high end units. If they're at full capacity, their marginal costs to increase production are prohibitive. It's more profitable to raise the price to fit the demand, than to build a new plant, when demand will likely soften again.

The pricing rarely has anything to do with actual costs. The whole industry did a big whomp of a price increase when stainless steel, as a commodity, did a leap up with no sight of a correction downward, but that's an exception. The "because of the dollar to euro" excuse is just marketing hype.

Duplicate. Sorry.

This post was edited by plllog on Tue, Jan 27, 15 at 15:55

So if I purchase a new European appliance instead of an old Jenn-Air that isn't made any more and I couldn't get even if I wanted to I'm dooming my kids to...what again exactly?

Maybe I should have titled my thread, "Climbing the Flagpole"!

Here is the latest thing that "went up the pole"

" ItâÂÂs the biggest, boldest, freshest Sub-Zero of all. MSRP $16,285"

Now how long do you think it will be, before we see many more "High End Fridges" priced at 16 grand?
Based upon past history, probably a couple years!

Now I was exaggerating, (slightly), about the 50-100 K prices, but running a high price up a flag pole is how it all starts. Miele says, if SZ can get 16K for a fridge , so can we, and of course, Gaggenau will out do them all!

Even Whirlpool has "got into the act", first by hiding the prices on their Jenn-air line of appliaces, (as SZ\Wolf still does, except on their web-site), and now their KA $2000.00 DW.

Don't you "Just Luv it" when you go to the internet to check a price on an Appliance, and it says "Call for price"?

Anyway, I'm getting too old to cut down any more flag poles, but I sure wouldn't mind seeing the new SZ pole chopped!!!!

Oh, by the way, hvtech 42, that SZ "Pro" fridge still uses two compressors, but three evaporators, one evaporator dedicated to keeping "accurate temps" for the separate compartments of the fridge.

Now that IS truly amazing and on the "Cutting Brink" of technology, ya thinks?

Interesting that my 2006 JA managed to do that with a single compressor, single condenser and a single evaporator, and even has digital controls and readouts for the 3 fridge areas!

No, I'm not trying to sell you my JA Fridge, or even saying you should buy a JA, my "Point" is that folks are being fed a lotta "GobbleTeaGoop", (IE Marketing Hype), in order to justify higher and higher prices!

Gary

Gary, if the prices offend you so much, stop looking!

You love your fridge. Get it fixed when it has problems, keep the coils clean, and love it, and it'll last you at least another ten years.

Thanks for the advice, Pillog, ten years, hmmm, that succer is gonna outlast me.

As you know, Pillog, I'm all set as far as appliances go, but I would like to see the young folks here, get the same kind of breaks I did.

No price fixing, could find reasonable prices on (most) not all, "Nice Appliances" or if you will "Semi High end".

I'm sure if I called the Jenn-air and my Electroluxes "High End"~~~~~WEll, I would probably be "Flamed outta here"!!!!

Gary

You wouldn't be flamed, but I think you were right that they're more upper middle than high, especially compared to the SZ you were bemoaning (though it's not out of line with other SZ pricing).

Or for that matter, that new Jenn-Air with the black insides. :)

Rather than saving the kiddies from the high end fridges, maybe you can concentrate on continuing to compile information for them about the middle and upper middle tiers, and how to get the best bargain there. Then you can be helpful and won't get so worked up. :)

Gary's Next Fridge:
{{gwi:2132620}}

Gary:

The prices of high-end appliances, like high-end cars, are relatively inelastic, that is, the quantities of such items that are sold are not simply proportional to price, whether measured in FRB IOUs (fiat dollars) or in gold (the dollar price of which has been manipulated for years). The value proposition for those for whom the price is relatively trivial includes exclusivity and symbolic wealth display, so long as the items do not carry with them a history of low reliability that might possibly be known to the purchasers' peers and interpreted as a deficiency. (This doesn't apply to specific toys such as Ferraris.)

For others not in the trivial cost group who may choose to afford the items at the cost of giving up something else, the value proposition might be different, and account for the degree to which the manufacturer is known to support his product (even though one is effectively paying a high insurance cost for that), or has some feature that one "can't live without." This group will be more elastic in price selection.

Those who are being pushed out of the middle class due to financial engineering of the economy will be the most elastic. They don't have the choice any longer of giving up one thing for another. They also will not be haunting the high-end appliance stores for the most expensive kitchen decorations.

Last, I would note that while currency depreciation (quantitative easing) has now shifted from the US to Europe, dragging (heh) down the Euro faster than the dollar at the moment, the cost of manufacturing a European appliance in man hours has not gone down, and the value of those manhours in absolutely depreciating dollars likely has gone up, though probably not at the rate that the European manufacturers' prices have gone up. To look beyond high-end price inelasticity, one might see that we who buy such appliances are also paying for a lot of social costs in Europe. Anticipate a similar rise in US appliance prices when increasing social costs here inevitably become factored into manufacturers' prices.

kas

I see a treatise in economics classes coming: "On Why a Ferrari Is Not a Refrigerator."

ROTFLOL!

Gary, what your analysis fails to take into account, prob because it's be a foreign concept for a small business owner, is that these multinationals have to use complex currency management practices just to run their businesses.

They have to "lock in " if you will their foreign prices, costs, profits ect... In their home currency so that your $1300 dishwasher costs $1300 all year. Those businesses can't be run if if the dishwasher is $1300 this month, $1700 in three months , and $1275 in six.

A large portion of gaggenaus 30% increase was to underwrite their 5 years parts AND labor warranty they rolled out and that has no equal. It cost money for that labor insurance policy .