Where would you spend your cash?

A snowHead

There's been lots of interesting discussion lately about low and high end gear. It put me to thinking about an issue that we didn't address directly.

Given the choice and a limited budget would you buy the high end of a cheaper brand or the low end of an expensive brand (assuming both could be bought for a similar amount).

Personally I would buy the high end of a cheaper brand, unless we are talking shoes, tomato ketchup, or cornflakes!! But for cars, tecnnical gear etc. I think there is more value in the high end of the cheaper brand.

What about the rest of you?

A snowHead

I don't pay a lot of attention to brands. Buy what fits you/what you like/what's comfortable/in a colour you fancy etc. etc.

Branding is for suckers.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Are we talking about ski gear?

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abc, no, knitting patterns.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

abc, When I initially thought about it ski gear was in my mind, but then I realised that the same question applies to other things, for example cars, and even foods etc. Play it as you wish.

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Most ski manufacturer's, irrespective of market position, tend to have too many skis in a range(s), & whose performance overlap somewhat. With so many manufacturers in the market there's an oversupply of skis, especially in a bad trading season like we've just had.

Each manufacturer also tends to have some duffers in the range (ie, they under perform for cost/design function) & some gems (ie, they over perform for cost/design function). The trick is being able to avoid the duffers & spot the gems as they give best value for money.

One of the problems with some of the end of season bargains is that they're being sold off as nobody bought them, ie the duffers. These models tend to get dropped or radically changed after just one season. The better performers tend to remain virtually unchanged (apart from graphics) for a few seasons & tend to hold their price as they're often sold out before the season ends. These are the gems if you can get a deal on them - & they become real bargains when the manufacturer eventually introduces a completely new replacement model & any remaining old 'un's get sold off real cheap.

The trick is not rush in to a purchase but to do your homework/testing in advance & then sit & wait for the deal to come along.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

Megamum, My decision would be based on quality and value for money, not brands, although many of the "top brands" tend to use the top fabrics.

I currently ski wearing Columbia jacket which I received free with my car (the car I purchased because of reliability and value for money). I bought a pair of matching salopettes in the sales, so ended up with a new ski suit that only cost £50 (or £21k if you include the car) Toofy Grin

After all it is free

Now that we have broaden our topic to include non-ski gears, things get totally out of hands.

First of all, not all "gear" has brand differentials. In other words, what's the "top" brand in binding? And what's a "cheap" brand for poles?

On gears that has brand differentials, such as cars. I think the best value is actually the middle of the brand. So I would pick a brand that's the quality I'm after and price I can afford. And find the functionality in the middle of the brand. I think the bottom of a high end brand tend to still be over-price and the top of low end brand often still under-quality, another form of over-price.

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Buy good quality used so you get more for your money and let the original owner take the real financial hit.

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The washing machine example also applies pretty well to cars. It's generally better to have a high quality base model than a low quality bells and whistles model. The base model of the higher quality brand will benefit from all the same research, design, development and quality control as the top-of-the-range model. There are a few exceptions, particularly where a manufacturer has several brands using a common base design eg Audi A3 / VW Golf / Seat Leon. In this example there is considerable overlap between the ranges.

You know it makes sense.

All quite interetsing but what are you paying for in a higher "quality" product? In a basic consumer good say a packet of biscuits or washing powder a lot of what you are paying for is the advertising and "brand" building. Hence the proliferation of own-brand copies in supermarkets as supermarkets make essentially the same product, sell it at a slightly lower price but make bigger margin.

In skis I'd say brands like Salomon have the greatest punter recognition hrough advertising, sponsorship and channel penetration (= stocked in lots of shops). However ask someone getting in 100+ days skiing a year and most wouldn't recommend them as a durable, quality product (I believe they may have been addressing in reintroducing wood construction recently). So are you really getting the quality you think? With snowboard gear I've had direct experience of Burton quality being poor & they are in a similar position to salomon in their market.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

For hardware, I'm not really sure what constitutes a "high-end" brand. All the well known ski manufacturers produce a pretty broad range of kit at different price ranges. Generally the more expensive stuff is aimed at better skiers (eg race stock skis, high DIN bindings etc) so maybe that's an indicator of where you ought to go.

For clothing, you need to ask yourself how good the kit really needs to be. If you want to spend £400 on a jacket, fine. But you absolutely do not need to. The ski jacket I have had the most use out of was about £60. It's a Mountain Equipment pac-light thing (bought in a sale - RRP=£80ish). It's still wearable after 100s of days' use but I got bored of it and have replaced it. I suppose it counts as bottom end of a high end kit manufacturer's range but it's as much about knowing what you need (and what you don't need) as anything else

A snowHead

thewahwah, hmmmm, washing machines difficult - some expensive brands come out of the same factory in Germany as some inexpensive brands. The expensive brand is perceived as being higher quality despite using same parts and manufacturing technique as the cheaper brands. Sort of Seat and VW springs to mind as well.

A snowHead

Help!!

Where would you spend your cash?

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