lookingto buy new kitchen taps. cant belive the prices. what makes taps so expensive.. i am not looking for advice on good deals. i want to kno why taps are s expensive.
8 Answers
It all depends what you term expensive!
Imagine if you will; most workers today are out for every dollar they can possibly earn & some ask for wage increases & these costs contribute along with many others contribute to the final cost of a certain products
The designer may want a cut for his ideas. There are many reasons why products are so expensive today, but the best advice I can possibly give you is; Go to the local hardware store to find the type of tap you want, then go to a plumbing merchant. The companies that sell to the hardware stores. Co’s they buy these products in at a discounted rate & in bulk & then on-sell them to the likes of plumbers & trades people & they buy at a discounted rate & then sell the product to the customer at the going retail rate.
The trick here is to locate the product that takes your fancy & go to a plumbing merchant & pay cash & more often than not they will sell to you, co’s they like the colour of your money!!
Cheers!!
Expensive Taps
You could buy a kitchen tap for £25, or one for £750. The difference goes like this…
£25 tap:
Superficially copied from a leading brand item
Made in China (probably by an appallingly low-paid child working a 20 hour day in a massive, dangerous sweatshop with lethal, low-quality machinery)
Made from the cheapest materials available (cheap, dirty, toxin-rich brass that’s been melted down and mixed with scrap metal so it’s weak and full of mechanical flaws, very poor quality chrome that’s also toxic and which will definitely peel off, unreliable badly machined internal mechanisms which will quickly fail)
Made in an extremely environmentally unfriendly way (huge quantities of toxins pumped into the air and the local water table by filthy factories)
Mass-produced in huge quantities to a very low standard with a very high proportion of faulty pieces being sent out, with no quality control
Sold in bulk by a wholesaler or importer who offers no aftersales care at all, so impossible to get spare parts, or to get a faulty tap replaced or repaired
£750 tap:
Designed and branded by a leading name designer
Expensively marketed and distributed by a respected brand
Made in Europe (so the factories cost a fortune to set up, own and run, and have to comply with all sorts of legal stipulations and environmental concerns, and the workers have to be paid properly, and the company pays its taxes)
Made from the best materials available (Very pure, high quality low-lead brass rods, high quality chrome that’s free from impurities and toxins and is processed in a relatively environmentally friendly way, Finely engineered ceramic cartridge mechanisms)
Each tap individually hand-made to a very high standard by skilled craftsmen, and passed through endless testing and quality control
Not just the whole tap, but every tiny little component within the tap is manufactured with the same care and attention and from the same quality materials
Sold by a company that invests heavily in product development, and also offers excellent aftersales care (you’ll always be able to get spare parts, and if an item is fautly it will be replaced)
Comes with proper instructions
They are expensive because they are designer to take abuse everyday from temperature extremes of hot and cold to the use of corrosive cleaners and get banged by pots and pans and grimy hands… and yet still sparkle and function for many years costing only a buck or so a month over time. That’s cheap!
hi william ..good question ..a lot depends not only on quality but what country ..you can buy some taps that are made in eastern europe ..they look great …but dont pass the test of time ..as a builder i only buy known names in uk and made there ..so i never buy from any diy type stores ..yes the customer pays more ..but they last more than twice as long ..i allso build in france .i recently bought some taps over there and they were such good quality i bought some back to uk ..sold them to my plumber ..i ask him how much he thought they were worth ..he said £45 pair ..i paid £6.00..new …but then again ..in france emulsion paint is about £45 for a tub ..over here i pay £8
I think it’s called price cartel – same thing with tyres for cars.
Welcome to rip-off GB
Because they can set the price. What are you going to do about it? Go without?
cus its metal