Lamy 2000 2021 edition?

[arcfide]

4 minutes ago, Intensity said:

And precisely: all the R&D is done.  They just changed the color of the PVD and the makrolon, added a hardcover book, and a notebook.   It's not like they used some more precious materials.  You're welcome to pay the extra $400 or so for those extra items, effectively.  Objectively-speaking, only hardcore collectors or people for whom a few hundred dollars is no big deal will spend that much on the LE pen.  Sadly that's the intent on Lamy's part.  You're paying for the exclusivity and nothing else, and people will always pay extra for that.   They COULD have made these pens more widely available and at lower price point to support the loyal 2000 fan base.  They would probably make more profit on selling more of these LE pens at a lower price point.  But they chose to irritate most Lamy 2000 fans instead.

 

 

No, the R&D was done for the original Lamy 2000, and the costs of that R&D long since recouped, but not for the new pen. "Just" changing the color, adding PVD processes, designing and including new packaging, materials, marketing, distribution, SKUs, market research, testing, process engineering, is *all* new R&D for this pen that was *not* included in the original. it is not free to just change the color and material finish on items and change the packaging up. These are not trivial decisions in any process that are subject to the engineering rigors that Lamy uses. 

 

I'm not privy to the exact costs involved in this product, but I'm familiar with another product that is subject to engineering constraints for quality control, where I know of a single tiny change that they wanted to make. It involved a small part that literally just needed a single different color of paint in a tiny area (5mm square) and a single extra hole with a single extra solid state piece inserted into this hole. All other specs were done and the entire rest of the  product was more or less the same. It tooks months just to get the initial product samples right, and then they needed to under go quality control testing to ensure that the production processes produced products that weren't going to fail in the wild. A single certification test of this part would cost at least $6000 - $8000 in raw test materials for this one change, just to see whether everything worked correctly or not. And you know what? It *failed* its first test. That means that at the very least, it cost at least somewhere between $12000 - 15000 in *only* material costs of testing materials (to say nothing of production costs, labor costs, time, loss of capacity, &c.) just to see if the product was going to work *after* the whole process had been built and designed and after the entire product had already gone through all sorts of R&D. And these tests have to occur on the product as it comes off the production line, meaning that you have to incur all of the costs associated with designing and putting together the entire production process. And each time they failed, they needed to go back, conduct root cause analysis, fix the issues in production, try again, and then recertify at the end. That means lots of human labor, too, and those people aren't cheap. That means to introduce a new product like this, at the estimated levels of demand (not anticipated, but the "what if this doesn't work, are we going to lose the company?" kind of estiamtes), for that product, that testing could easily have represented 10% or more of their potential profit, depending on their margins for that product (which I don't know). 

 

Lamy has done a lot of work specifically to reduce the need for human labor in their products. Lamy not only says as much in their official videos, but also explains why: if they didn't cut out human labor costs in their product productions, they couldn't afford to stay in Germany. I have a few colleagues that work in Germany and they talk about how difficult and expensive it is to do business there, especially running any sort of company. For example, one of the things they did with the Aion to ensure that they could actually offer it at a price that they considered reasonable and produce the product that they wanted was to actually cut out the manual finish work that is involved in some of their other pens. But that costs money because they needed to create the entire process. Once the process was set up, they then have reduced labor costs. 

 

But the Lamy 2000 is one of their most labor intensive products. And you can't just "keep everything the same but change the color." Logistics doesn't work like that. There's all sorts of work that has to go into the production process to ensure that this new product can be produced correctly, to say nothing of getting to what should actually be produced in the first place (consider that Lamy has tried and scrapped many design efforts over the years with the L2K in attempts to produce new colors, and each of those design costs that fail have to be factored into the costs of the products that they *do* market). You have to factor in all of those failed efforts, all of the impacts to the production, sales, marketing, and distribution that it creates, and so forth. 

 

And then there is the brand identity that they have to consider. Let's say that they released this as a regular edition that everyone gets. Well, firstly, there is then a gap for them in terms of producing "special pens" which are in demand right now. The consumer *wants* to buy special things right now, and limited editions are quite popular. So if they don't do it with this brown edition, then they probably have to spool up more resources to produce *another* product that matches that niche. Replacing limited edition pens with "just a new normal product" will *not* make those consumers happy, and there are a lot of them out there. Many of them are the sort that would be happier to see a pen  that is a special limited edition that they can't get or won't get, rather than a pen that is normal production but that they could afford. So, there's a very real brand impact that they create if they change from LE to regular production. 

 

But then let's consider those who *would* purchase the pen in a different color if it were a regular price but wouldn't purchase if it were the limited edition. Are those fundamentally people who are new customers, or are those customers who would be customers anyways and are just choosing to purchase the brown instead of the black? If a significant enough portion of those customers are just customers who would have purchased a black L2K, then you've diluted your product offerings and softened up the market, all while increasing your total production and distribution costs, as well as increasing logistical costs in managing an additional product offering. That means that the net profit you're making on each of the pens is less than if you had the single color. You would have to have introduced enough new customers who wouldn't already have purchased the black L2K or who would add the brown to their collection to justify the non-trivial increase in complexity, cost, and loss of agility within the company. And for those who are ones who would add it to their collection, how many of those would *only* add it to their collection if it were the lower price? 

 

And then, what effect is having the brown L2K as a regular edition doing to the Lamy Design ethos? That's an important part of the image of the company, and that image is an important part of the modern fountain pen as a lifestyle product.  Are you really "buying into the Lamy lifestyle" as much if that lifestyle doesn't include that sort of conservative, "these are our colors" sense of simplicity and restraint? In a sense, part of what people are buying in a Lamy pen, especially for some of the higher end products as lifestyle options is the "Lamy attitude" of "slightly boring, minimalistic, simple, straightforward, engineering focused." The brand would lose that same draw if their big pens were available in every color imaginable. They'd be *less* attractive from a lifestyle perspective. That matters. You have to be able to justify giving that up. Limited editions don't create that same impression, because they are special, limited, and restricted. They're not "normal." 

 

So let's take that extra $400. Let's take maybe $100 off of that for the retail margin, I don't know. That's $300 to Lamy. Let's round that out to 1 million for their 3300. I don't think it would surprise me at all to find that R&D cost between 10% and 25% of that. So, maybe this gets them 900,000 or 750,000. If they dropped the price, how long do you think it would take them to sell the needed amount to recoup their investment and reach the same level of profit? Could they sell 9000 new units worth of L2Ks with this model in the same time that they could sell 3300 of the Limited Editions? Is the demand that high? And remember, I'd say that these 9000 new units don't count as a new unit sale if that customer would have already have purchased a L2K in black or Stainless. This has to be a customer that wouldn't have already purchased that unit in an already existing product line. Is there really demand for that level of brown L2Ks sold as a regular product line (thereby negating any purchasing urgency of the limited edition feature)? 

 

It's very possible that there is. Clearly Lamy is paying attention to these numbers as they recognized that their last limited edition L2K was waaay under stocked. There's a lot more demand there, so they are offering more this time. If you say that there is that demand, and I think that's what you are saying, how much are you willing to bet on that from a business side. How much are you willing to lose and risk on that loss if you're wrong? IMO, this brown edition is a pretty sure thing, but I'd say that the brown L2K as a regular edition would be much less of a sure thing, and Lamy strikes me as pretty risk averse. Recall that it took quite a while for Lamy to ramp up confidence in producing as many Safari and Ink special editions. 

 

Finally, LE's are a type of value-add for many consumers. Lamy, as you point out, is *creating* value for their consumer-base by making a limited edition exclusive. That fundamentally is making quite a few Lamy fans happy, and they will be *more* satisfied with their purchase because of that. Is it really a bad thing for Lamy to provide something of known high value to their consumers and loyal fan base? I don't think its fair to resent Lamy for making something for loyal fans who just happen to value Lamy a little higher than others. There's a psychology of exclusivity that matters even in the normal L2K lineup. Lamy has made fountain pen collecting and high quality fountain pens in general highly accessible to a huge range of people of many different levels of purchasing power. I suspect that many people would not think as highly of the L2K if Lamy figured out how to sell it for the same price as a Safari. The fact that it serves as a sort of flagship model for Lamy is partly signaled through pricing, which automatically introduces both exclusivity *and* a pride of ownership that isn't there in the Lamy Safari, if though they might be nearly identical in terms of pure objective functional value delivered (and the Lamy Safari might actually be more functionally valuable to more people than the L2K objectively). It's sort of like being irritated because you want something you can't have, but when you can have it easily and without effort, you no longer want it. It's not at all clear that Lamy simply offering this at a lower price point would fundamentally be delivering more net value across the board and make people more satisfied across the board (which translates into profits).

 

Fountain pens are lifestyle products, *not* just tools. The moment you start talking about wanting a specific color, you start shifting away from functional tools into lifestyle. And that means they are trading largely on their intangible or subjective qualities, and scarcity matters when it comes to enjoyment of such things, *even* for people who don't actually have the things that are scarce. Many people derive a sort of value and pleasure from grail pens precisely because they are somewhat inaccessible. They wouldn't derive the same sort of pleasure if that grail pen were immediately accessible. Lack of want does not translate into lack of suffering in humans, often the opposite happens.

 

 

[Intensity]

Please forgive me, but that’s a tremendously long essay to justify this business decision.  If you have to spend so much time defending it, that should tell you how much of a stretch it is to do.  I own plenty of pens with higher MSRP than the LE Lamy 2000.  I’m still going to call out the BS on this model.

[arcfide]

2 hours ago, Intensity said:

Please forgive me, but that’s a tremendously long essay to justify this business decision.  If you have to spend so much time defending it, that should tell you how much of a stretch it is to do.  I own plenty of pens with higher MSRP than the LE Lamy 2000.  I’m still going to call out the BS on this model.

 

I apologize for being thorough and precise, it always gets me into trouble. Short version: just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's not right; don't sell the efforts of the people who produce these products short just because you undervalue their work. 

[A Smug Dill]

17 hours ago, Intensity said:

They COULD have made these pens more widely available and at lower price point to support the loyal 2000 fan base.  They would probably make more profit on selling more of these LE pens at a lower price point.  But they chose to irritate most Lamy 2000 fans instead.

 

… and there we have it. All that outrage, teeth-gnashing and bellyaching seem to come down to, ”I love the Lamy 2000 (the pen model), but Lamy (the company whose business is for-profit enterprise) doesn't love me back,” and that Lamy did not choose to apply its resources and capability for fan service, but instead endeavoured to produce some nevertheless desirable ‘limited edition’ variants that are aimed at yielding higher profit margins.

 

Never mind that Lamy made it clear in its marketing (https://www.lamy.com/en/lamy-2000-brown/) that this is an “exclusive set for connoisseurs”, but did not discriminate against or exclude any “loyal 2000 fan” expressly, either for being just that, or by requiring proof that the buyer qualifies as a “connoisseur”.

 

The crux of the grievance therefore appears to be, ”I, as a self-styled loyal fan (or devotee, evangelist, etc.) of the pen model, feel sidelined and excluded because I choose not to pay the asking price and/or compete with others who are even keener for the short-run limited edition. Lamy, with all its resources and power, could have made more units, sold them more cheaply, settle for a lower profit margin per unit, spare me from having to making an uncomfortable choice (ultimately to forgo), and made me happy; but it has decided differently, and for that disrespect and betrayal I'm annoyed, angry, etc.”

[maclink]

I have to say that it's interesting that one may feel anger or insulted by the price of this edition Lamy 2K.  These are emotions/feelings that are typically acted upon if given the opportunity.  This is what leads to wanton censorship and loss of freedoms, all because an individual or group doesn't like 'x' or feel insulted by 'x'.  We should be careful here.  Of course, there are no absolutes, but the threshold seems low to me.

 

@arcfide  Thanks for your explanation.  Interesting, as always, and not surprising.  While, I can't confirm the R&D/other production costs behind producing this pen, as an L2K fan, my main motivation was simply desire for the brown version.  I realised that the packaging/embellishments/presentation with accompanying note|book|s, would make up a significant part of the cost, even though I wasn't particularly interested in that aspect of the offering.  Was I able to afford and willing to pay?  Yes on both, hence my having one.  'In the flesh', I think the colour is great and the clip colour does go well with the overall appearance... to my eyes anyway, and clearly that of the designers.

 

 

[IThinkIHaveAProblem]

1 hour ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

The crux of the grievance therefore appears to be, ”I, as a self-styled loyal fan (or devotee, evangelist, etc.) of the pen model, feel sidelined and excluded because I choose not to pay the asking price and/or compete with others who are even keener for the short-run limited edition. Lamy, with all its resources and power, could have made more units, sold them more cheaply, settle for a lower profit margin per unit, spare me from having to making an uncomfortable choice (ultimately to forgo), and made me happy; but it has decided differently, and for that disrespect and betrayal I'm annoyed, angry, etc.”

your key assertion there is choice

that's a loaded word.

I like my 2000 (I'd like it a lot better if it wasn't an EF...) 

But its a 200$ pen.

700$ for essentially the same pen is not a "choice" except in that I would have to "choose" to forgo eating or making a car payment or selling several other pens that I also like (which by the time the sales were done and money collected, the LE 2000 would be long sold out anyways so that's not really an option here)

 

So yes, people are angry that Lamy choose to cater to people who have money, vs fans.

I don't think that's unreasonable.

In fact, I'm on board with that. So much so that although I knew it wouldn't happen, I was actively hoping that it would be a complete sales flop in order to motivate Lamy to re-evaluate how they price LE pens, as that is the only realistic way that they would ever do so.

 

The problem with abusing/angering your fans too much is that eventually, they leave. Just ask Star Wars.

If it wasn't for Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau, I would NEVER EVER have watched another Star Wars ANYTHING, and I am not alone in that. Disney has been truly abusive to their fans. And the complete and utter lack of merchandise sales (relatively speaking) was an excellent demonstration of what happens as a result of that.

 

 

[A Smug Dill]

1 hour ago, IThinkIHaveAProblem said:

your key assertion there is choice

that's a loaded word.

 

Choice simply means having alternatives (often including the ‘default’ option of taking no action, which will likely result in no gain), from which to select of one's volition, without any implication that at least one alternative would be best/better than the other(s), satisfy one's objective, or deliver a happy outcome to the individual with the choice. To assume oneself to be in scope of (the target audience of) something on offer, and then expect or even demand there is some way to ‘win’ and not be unhappy having seen what is on offer and dreamt what is possible, is to unduly “load” the idea of having a choice, in my opinion.

 

Loyal fan or not, one has no inherent entitlement to be in the ‘running’ to acquire a Lamy 2000 pen variant of some description (and probably a desirable one) out of the ordinary. Like I said, though, Lamy has not outright excluded or disqualified anyone, but simply made it clear that the special brown Lamy 2000 set, as a product, is deliberately exclusive (i.e. not for everyone) and targeted at connoisseurs — whatever that means — and that only N units will be available, and so one may yet have to compete with other connoisseurs if demand exceeds supply at the asking price, even if one is prepared to pay it. Even if you feel you're being left out in the cold while someone else is being favoured, that's still not about being abused. I, for one, have no problem with being neglected by any for-profit enterprise, unless it has already taken money from me for something they failed to deliver, but is uncommunicative as to when it will come good.

[IThinkIHaveAProblem]

1 minute ago, A Smug Dill said:

Loyal fan or not, one has no inherent entitlement to be in the ‘running’ to acquire a Lamy 2000 pen variant of some description (and probably a desirable one) out of the ordinary. Like I said, though, Lamy has not outright excluded or disqualified anyone, but simply made it clear that the special brown Lamy 2000 set, as a product, is deliberately exclusive (i.e. not for everyone) and targeted at connoisseurs — whatever that means — and that only N units will be available, and so one may yet have to compete with other connoisseurs if demand exceeds supply at the asking price, even if one is prepared to pay it. Even if you feel you're being left out in the cold while someone else is being favoured, that's still not about being abused. I, for one, have no problem with being neglected by any for-profit enterprise, unless it has already taken money from me for something they failed to deliver, but is uncommunicative as to when it will come good.

 

Ah but Lamy has excluded people. They have excluded those who cannot afford to pay a 200%+ premium over the base product.

 

In this case, "connoisseurs" means "people with a significantly larger than the usual customer's amount of disposable income to spend on a single pen"

 

I will retract the word "abuse" from my previous post and replace it with "take for granted" and/or "neglect"

(abuse was the wrong word, I was thinking more in the sense of "abuse of trust", "abuse of good will" and I failed to make that clear)

 

The long term consequence of "taking for granted" or "neglecting" fans is remains the same: they leave.

And take their money with them.

Neglect them badly enough and they take ALL of their money with them; even the money they did have for stuff like safaris, or a 2nd "regular" 2000 with a different nib.

 

In the end, creating animosity towards your business is not a good thing

And IMO Lamy have done that with the pricing of this pen

Whatever most people's perception was of Lamy before, I think it's safe to say many of us now see them as greedier than I/we would prefer to support/do business with

[A Smug Dill]

1 hour ago, IThinkIHaveAProblem said:

And IMO Lamy have done that with the pricing of this pen

Whatever most people's perception was of Lamy before, I think it's safe to say many of us now see them as greedier than I/we would prefer to support/do business with

 

I'm not going to try to shout down your opinion or silence it.

 

I like Lamy as a fountain pen brand and, by extension, as a company (as a for-profit enterprise and all), but the Lamy 2000 was one of models I was least interested in acquiring. Not to get personal, because it isn't really about him, but it was only after reading @Honeybadgers's expression of grievance at the pricing of the blue Bauhaus limited edition — coupled ironically with how he had previously said, more than once, that the Lamy 2000 Makrolon as a pen model punches above its weight in spades, and is easily worth >US$400 compared to the competition in the marketplace — that I acquired a unit of the blue Bauhaus (for less than US$400). It's a nice enough pen, but I dislike the EF nib on it for being not nearly fine or precise enough; and there are so many other pens I'd buy for ≤US$400 (predominantly Japanese pens, but also Aurora and perhaps Santini Italia pens); and, for roughly the same price, I'd acquired Pelikan M600 LE (complete with nib customisation) and Aurora Optima aurolide pens (which I much prefer). However… again, this isn't personal… upon reading your replies, I feel re-energised in wanting Lamy to do well, and convince other hobbyists — without giving them a bum steer, that's not my intention — to spend money with Lamy, so that the impact of the (projected?) departure of ‘fans’ on self-imposed budget limitations won't matter to the company's bottom line.

 

And, just as you hope Lamy's play with the pricing of the Lamy 2000 brown 2021 LE will ‘fail’, I hope it will ‘prevail‘ in spite of your sentiment; again, nothing personal, but simply to ‘prove’ that it doesn't matter to the final sales figures. I'm not trying to steer Lamy the company or its management, and it isn't my place to do so; I just wish it well, because I like the brand (as opposed to the Lamy 2000 as a pen model specifically).

 

Circling back, and repeating myself, I don't want to shout you down. I simply want to help the dollars that flow to show to Lamy that it doesn't matter what you think, or what I think; the spending customer base speaks for itself. I, for one, am happy to help that grow — especially if it's not at the expense of my finite savings — because I count myself a fan of the brand, want it to do well, and hope to see it being around with more product offerings when I'm ready to spend more money next.

[IThinkIHaveAProblem]

19 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

I'm not going to try to shout down your opinion or silence it.

...

It is precisely because I like Lamy as a brand that I don't want them to do go down this path.

 

I happen to like the 2000 and I do think the black 2000 is worth it's current market price.

And while I'm not as in love with the Safari as my wife is, I admit it is a very good pen at a reasonable price.

 

I don't want Lamy to fail. I want this exclusionary pricing strategy to fail.

My issue/fear is that by alienating some of their fans, they risk losing them as fans/customers

And that's not good for the company, or the consumers.

 

 

[lionelc]

I answer that, As stated above (Article 4), our choice is always concerned with our actions. Now whatever is done by us, is possible to us. Therefore we must needs say that choice is only of possible things.

apologies for veering to the esoteric again - from the prima secundae partis - with smug on this one

[sirgilbert357]

10 hours ago, arcfide said:

 

I apologize for being thorough and precise, it always gets me into trouble. Short version: just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's not right; don't sell the efforts of the people who produce these products short just because you undervalue their work. 

 

You can't know you were thorough and precise though.

 

You assume way too much. From the difficulty of the process, to the costs of the R&D, to the profit made per pen. We've got Makrolon pens coming out of China for pennies on the dollar. New colors of Al-Stars are being dropped all the time, and the price isn't 3 or 4 times what the regular Al-Stars cost. Most of what you posted cannot be verified by anyone but Lamy, yet you position it as fact. Your arguments are all unconvincing.

 

But I'm not here to argue...so that's all I'll say on this.

[sirgilbert357]

Geez.

 

What happened to just saving up for what you want? If you're mad you can't afford something, that isn't the pen company's fault. They reserve the right to price their product at whatever price they want -- and adjust it to whatever the market can bear. There's lots of pens I can't emotionally justify (seen the prices on the 2013 L.E. Pelikan M800 Tortoise lately??), but that doesn't mean the price isn't "fair". I could go get another job and make some extra money to save up for an expensive pen if I wanted it that bad...

[a m a r g o]

4 hours ago, sirgilbert357 said:

 

You can't know you were thorough and precise though.

 

You assume way too much. From the difficulty of the process, to the costs of the R&D, to the profit made per pen. We've got Makrolon pens coming out of China for pennies on the dollar. New colors of Al-Stars are being dropped all the time, and the price isn't 3 or 4 times what the regular Al-Stars cost. Most of what you posted cannot be verified by anyone but Lamy, yet you position it as fact. Your arguments are all unconvincing.

 

But I'm not here to argue...so that's all I'll say on this.

 

I agree completely...

 

Basically the changes on the pen are: different makrolon color and anodized aluminum clip or heat treated steel clip (don't know which path they took with it); being all the processes needed to deliver those changes well within Lamy's normal production procedures. Moreover, as someone already stated, the Lamy 2000 is one of the products that need more manual labour within their catalog, so they are for sure used to accommodate or modify their production procedures to any new input.

[arcfide]

6 hours ago, sirgilbert357 said:

 

You can't know you were thorough and precise though.

 

You assume way too much. From the difficulty of the process, to the costs of the R&D, to the profit made per pen. We've got Makrolon pens coming out of China for pennies on the dollar. New colors of Al-Stars are being dropped all the time, and the price isn't 3 or 4 times what the regular Al-Stars cost. Most of what you posted cannot be verified by anyone but Lamy, yet you position it as fact. Your arguments are all unconvincing.

 

But I'm not here to argue...so that's all I'll say on this.

 

If that's your takeaway of what I wrote, then I wasn't clear enough, even if I was precise and thorough, IMO. I didn't make any of the claims in my post that you're inferring. 

[arcfide]

10 hours ago, IThinkIHaveAProblem said:

Ah but Lamy has excluded people. They have excluded those who cannot afford to pay a 200%+ premium over the base product.

 

The very act of offering something to someone in voluntary exchange for something is exclusionary by definition, and that is a good thing. It's how the entire world advances and increases the overall net good distributed throughout the world. It is, in essence, the very definition of fair. If someone is right to expect to receive something because they are a fan of it, without the expectation of exchanging something of equal or greater worth to the person offering the thing, then we should all be legally entitled to receive a Lamy 2000 for free, in whatever color we want, and it should be given to use at our door step or on the street wherever we are, because the moment you require effort from someone to obtain something, it now costs them something to get it, and it inherently excludes some number of people. Lamy is excluding some people because they aren't marketing in some areas, and they are excluding people simply by pricing their pens at the price they are pricing them, instead of something lower. 

 

Resenting Lamy for pricing you (generic you) out of a product and calling them unethical or greedy for doing so means essentially that you expect them to give you anything of theirs that you want for the price you want, without their input. In that exchange, you are making the choice for Lamy, you are deciding what is good for Lamy and what is good for you, and telling Lamy "deal with it." It may be trying to do so passively, but it's still fundamentally an expectation that Lamy should no longer retain autonomy over their own worth and value, and that you get to decide that without any input or negotiation from them. You've essentially created a win-lose situation in which you get to win, but Lamy loses (a "win" by your definition is still a loss for Lamy if they lose the ability to voluntarily decide for themselves what they want and are willing to give: imagine if the tables were turned). 

 

But Lamy is able to have the negotiation right now, and they are having that conversation. The way they do that is to offer up a product at a price that would be worth it to them. And then you get to decide whether or not you want to pay that. If you don't want to pay that, you're telling Lamy that it's not worth it to you, and that's great. Then they get to decide whether it is worth it to them to have your business by lowering the price. But the key thing is that you don't get to just call all the shots. Everyone else in the world gets to do so as well. You get input, but it is not fair to Lamy and to others for you to be able to dictate to them how they should behave and what their worth is to them and how much something is worth to them, nor to eliminate their voice in the transaction just because yours isn't as relevant (it's not irrelevant, but it's not that great, either).

 

I think it's great to voice your opinion that this Lamy is too expensive, and that you don't think it is worth it. I think it's great to not purchase it because you don't want to purchase a Lamy at that price. But I don't think it's good or fair to Lamy to call them greedy, unethical, or disloyal to their fans just because you think the price is not worth it to you. And as a fan, don't you want to see Lamy do well? If the price of Lamy pens in general is able to go higher and the market over time is able to bear that extra price, that means that Lamy as a whole is being seen as more valuable and worth more. That means they're doing well (barring some other issues). Isn't that what we want as fans? There's nothing good about a company so scared to play with their prices that they are unable to speak to their customers (which happens through pricing) and which eventually spells the death of a company or the loss of its original spirit. 

 

The only win-win here is when Lamy gets to offer something at a price that they think makes things worth it to them, and others are able to voluntary speak up with their money if they think it is also worth it to them. Then you get a win-win exchange. Give Lamy a few more years to feel out demand and listen to what people are willing to pay for their products, and I'm sure they'll figure it out one way or another. I just don't think getting resentful or accusatory of Lamy is fair, though saying that this model is priced too high is perfectly fair. 

[Calabria]

23 hours ago, Intensity said:

Please forgive me, but that’s a tremendously long essay to justify this business decision.  If you have to spend so much time defending it, that should tell you how much of a stretch it is to do.  I own plenty of pens with higher MSRP than the LE Lamy 2000.  I’m still going to call out the BS on this model.

Hear hear

[IThinkIHaveAProblem]

2 hours ago, arcfide said:

Resenting Lamy for pricing you (generic you) out of a product and calling them unethical or greedy for doing so means essentially that you expect them to give you anything of theirs that you want for the price you want, without their input. In that exchange, you are making the choice for Lamy, you are deciding what is good for Lamy and what is good for you, and telling Lamy "deal with it." It may be trying to do so passively, but it's still fundamentally an expectation that Lamy should no longer retain autonomy over their own worth and value, and that you get to decide that without any input or negotiation from them. You've essentially created a win-lose situation in which you get to win, but Lamy loses (a "win" by your definition is still a loss for Lamy if they lose the ability to voluntarily decide for themselves what they want and are willing to give: imagine if the tables were turned). 

This is a fundamental mischaracterization of my point and a complete straw man.

At no point did I say that Lamy OWES me anything.  

And certainly not at "any price point I want" otherwise, I would be demanding a black 2000 at 50$! (or maybe less!)

 

Lamy doesn't OWE me anything, but neither do I OWE Lamy any kind of loyalty or silence WRT to my thoughts on their pricing.

They are "free" to price it any way they want, and I am free to not give them my money AND to voice my opinion on that pricing.

 

And no, I'm not "deciding" what is "good for Lamy" I'm pointing out that if they set their prices above what is perceived by some (apparently quite a few here) as being acceptable/what we are willing to pay, then Lamy will suffer the financial repercussions of that action, some of which may be long term.

 

As to resenting and calling them greedy, that is entirely a matter of personal judgement. If you think its ok to pay over 200% more for a pen simply because the colour changed, then fill yer boots! But I think you're getting screwed, and my saying so IN NO WAY oppresses you or removes your ability to continue to buy that pen! 

 

For the record, Lamy does NOT have "autonomy" over their pricing scheme.

The Free Market controls their pricing. All they have "autonomy" over is how they want to approach that market and then they have to deal with the consequences of that action. 

 

2 hours ago, arcfide said:

But Lamy is able to have the negotiation right now, and they are having that conversation. The way they do that is to offer up a product at a price that would be worth it to them. And then you get to decide whether or not you want to pay that. If you d

on't want to pay that, you're telling Lamy that it's not worth it to you, and that's great. Then they get to decide whether it is worth it to them to have your business by lowering the price. But the key thing is that you don't get to just call all the shots. Everyone else in the world gets to do so as well. You get input, but it is not fair to Lamy and to others for you to be able to dictate to them how they should behave and what their worth is to them and how much something is worth to them, nor to eliminate their voice in the transaction just because yours isn't as relevant (it's not irrelevant, but it's not that great, either).

 

What "negotiation"? Lamy said "this is the price, buy it or ef off." 

That's not a "conversation" it's an ultimatum: do this, or don't

And that is their prerogative. I never said it wasn't  That's how business is done (except at flea markets and bazars etc)

What I said was that I think its a bad idea and I don't like it.

 

I fail to see where you think I'm trying to "call the shots"

I'm not a Lamy exec, nor am I a major shareholder. I don't get to "call the shots" 

All I've said is when a brand chooses to ignore the wishes of a significant portion of its customers, it does so at its own risk.

 

2 hours ago, arcfide said:

You get input, but it is not fair to Lamy and to others for you to be able to dictate to them how they should behave and what their worth is to them and how much something is worth to them, nor to eliminate their voice in the transaction just because yours isn't as relevant (it's not irrelevant, but it's not that great, either).

 

WTH are you even on about here?... how am I dictating anything?

Do you think that I'm secretly typing this from Germany and that I'm holding the CEO hostage with a gun to his head!?

I'm a customer, and I have voiced my displeasure (as have many others here) at their pricing of this pen.

How does that "eliminate" anyone else's voice?

I fail to see the financial terrorism you seem to be implying that I am employing...

Unless you are suggesting that voicing my opinion is going to hurt someone's feelings, and that that somehow oppresses them... 

 

2 hours ago, arcfide said:

I think it's great to voice your opinion that this Lamy is too expensive, and that you don't think it is worth it. I think it's great to not purchase it because you don't want to purchase a Lamy at that price. But I don't think it's good or fair to Lamy to call them greedy, unethical, or disloyal to their fans just because you think the price is not worth it to you. And as a fan, don't you want to see Lamy do well? If the price of Lamy pens in general is able to go higher and the market over time is able to bear that extra price, that means that Lamy as a whole is being seen as more valuable and worth more. That means they're doing well (barring some other issues). Isn't that what we want as fans? There's nothing good about a company so scared to play with their prices that they are unable to speak to their customers (which happens through pricing) and which eventually spells the death of a company or the loss of its original spirit. 

so... Now I'm allowed to not give Lamy my money... And I'm allowed to say I think it's too expensive...

But I'm not allowed to say WHY I think it's too expensive?...

How is saying that I think they are being greedy "bad" or "unfair"?...

Are you worried I'm going to hurt Lamy's feelings with my harsh words and opinions!?

If that is your concern, don't worry: they have millions and millions of dollars they can use to wipe their tears.

 

As a fan, yes, I want to Lamy to succeed. It would be a shame if the Safari and the 2000 ceased to be made!

But I don't want them to "succeed" the way you suggest! 

The way you suggest that they succeed leads to their prices going up and up and up to the point where

I can like Lamy in the same way I like Ferrari : From afar, unable to ever own one.

 

I don't think anyone wants something they like to suddenly become unaffordable to them! 

In your model of success a Lamy 2000 eventually costs more than I could reasonably afford. 

And if I can't afford to buy it, then I don't give two figs if Lamy is still around. Since at that point I am no longer a customer!

Just like I don't particularly care if MonteGrappa or Louis Vuitton or Ferrari go out of business:

I am not their customer, so why would I care about their business?...

 

Another more concrete example: I like steak, and I want Beef ranchers to succeed, but I don't want them to do so in a way that makes steak cost 10X as much as it does now so that I end up having to give up steak! That would be insane!

If that was to happen, for all I care the domestic cow can go extinct!

 

2 hours ago, arcfide said:

 Give Lamy a few more years to feel out demand and listen to what people are willing to pay for their products, and I'm sure they'll figure it out one way or another. I just don't think getting resentful or accusatory of Lamy is fair, though saying that this model is priced too high is perfectly fair. 

 

 

So, again, I'm allowed to say that I think the price is too high... but I don't get to say WHY I think it's too high?...

I fail to understand how my saying I think they are being greedy somehow infringes on anyone else's rights... which you seem to be accusing me of... If anyone's rights are being infringed here, it's you, attempting to infringe mine, by telling me to shut up if I don't like it!

 

So... how many years of 700$ (or more) SE 2000s does Lamy get to release before the people who think that a 200% price increase (simply to change the colour!) is greedy get to say that they think it's greedy?...

 

Your argument seems to be all about what is "fair" to Lamy 

Lamy is not entitled to "fairness" WRT to my opinions on their pricing

Just as I'm not entitled to what I consider to be "fair" pricing for a mere colour change

 

[sirgilbert357]

5 hours ago, arcfide said:

 

If that's your takeaway of what I wrote, then I wasn't clear enough, even if I was precise and thorough, IMO. I didn't make any of the claims in my post that you're inferring. 

 

I'm just evaluating what you said:

 

"There's all sorts of work that has to go into the production process to ensure that this new product can be produced correctly, to say nothing of getting to what should actually be produced in the first place (consider that Lamy has tried and scrapped many design efforts over the years with the L2K in attempts to produce new colors, and each of those design costs that fail have to be factored into the costs of the products that they *do* market). You have to factor in all of those failed efforts, all of the impacts to the production, sales, marketing, and distribution that it creates, and so forth." 

 

"So let's take that extra $400. Let's take maybe $100 off of that for the retail margin, I don't know. That's $300 to Lamy. Let's round that out to 1 million for their 3300. I don't think it would surprise me at all to find that R&D cost between 10% and 25% of that."

 

I don't take issue with some of the things you say in principle. But you trying to justify the higher cost through any means of explanation which you do not have personal, inside information on is just a bit much. You think R&D costs are 25% of the purchase price?? How much do authorized distributors pay for this pen then? How much goes into the actual production? What are their fixed costs on it? How much were the packaging materials? How can you say the R&D is 25% when you know literally NOTHING about any of the other costs? We don't even know their profit margin!!

 

You aren't wrong that it costs money to make something different than the current product. I just think you're way off on how much. It's OK, we can agree to disagree. I don't have all Lamy's financials in front of me either. But you're making a mountain out of a mole hill -- and there is literally no reason to defend the price. They can sell it for whatever they want. They changed the dye for the Makrolon and coated the clip. They coat clips on other pens and they have a myriad of research on dyes already due to their long history of making Al-Stars every color of the rainbow. I doubt this was a hard project for them. And yes, I know the Al-Star isn't apples to apples, but some things translate in an industry like theirs. I find it hard to believe they started from scratch.

 

What would be really interesting is if we saw cheap knock off blue and brown makrolon pens out of China in a few months. Oh the R&D costs they must have incurred, right? Honestly, Lamy probably spends more on taxes, wages, benefits, environmental regulations, and governmental red tape than figuring out how to make a pen brown instead of black. That's a huge reason stuff is cheaper from China.

[arcfide]

1 hour ago, IThinkIHaveAProblem said:

I fail to understand how my saying I think they are being greedy somehow infringes on anyone else's rights... which you seem to be accusing me of... If anyone's rights are being infringed here, it's you, attempting to infringe mine, by telling me to shut up if I don't like it!

 

1 hour ago, IThinkIHaveAProblem said:

What "negotiation"? Lamy said "this is the price, buy it or ef off." 

 

1 hour ago, IThinkIHaveAProblem said:

Are you worried I'm going to hurt Lamy's feelings with my harsh words and opinions!?

If that is your concern, don't worry: they have millions and millions of dollars they can use to wipe their tears.

 

I think the above quotes get at the heart of the matter, and that's maybe where we're having the disconnect. We both seem to agree that Lamy gets to set their prices and we get to decide whether or not we want to pay them. However, I consider that back and forth of "set price, see if people buy, adjust pricing, see if people buy new thing" to be the primary conversation, with everything else being "back channel" communications. I consider the back and forth of the free market to be the negotiation and conversation that has the most weight and import. When I speak of negotiation that's what I'm talking about. Lamy sets the price for this brown, and then you either say yes or no, and then they get to respond with their next offer, either by changing their offering on the brown LE, or with a different product or by standing fast to their original offer. 

 

You seem to be claiming that terms "greedy", "bs pricing", and the like have no particular meaning other than, "I don't agree with this pricing." However, I'm consider the tone of your posts, those terms, and comments like the above "millions and millions" to provide important context. People say things like "millions and millions" and the like usually as a short hand to say, "they have plenty of money,. they shouldn't care about making more." It implicitly applies an ethical evaluation to their situation which suggests that they are abusing and taking advantage of other people, or at the very least neglecting them. 

 

Thus, when you use the terms greedy and "bs pricing" I do not see you just making a claim that you disagree with the price, but that you believe what they are doing is fundamentally unethical and morally wrong (even if it may be legal). My argument stems from this. If Lamy is behaving unethically, then the next question is what you believe would be required for them to behave ethically, which I believe you have expressed in terms of a specific set of pricing constraints on them. Thus, my argument is against the world that you propose as the only ethical one. Your argument against their pricing amounts to, in my reading, "it is unethical and morally wrong for a company to price a product with these characteristics more than this % different from their other models of similar characteristics or to limit its availability." Assuming that we expect all companies to always behave in an ethical manner within a free market, then such an argument implies a constraint on what Lamy is permitted to be able to do with regards to their product offerings, but also implies a relative ethical principles about pricing and exclusionary practices that can be brought forward to its full conclusion. 

 

"Greedy", "unfair", and "bs pricing" implies malicious intent and disregard of the consumer. Particularly when applied in the context of modern language to corporations adjacent to words like "millions and millions to wipe their tears" such terms are usually meant to impute moral judgment on a company for doing something that people believe is fundamentally unethical, usually with regards to profit (which is usually considered as fundamentally immoral and abusive by a large number of people, who are wiling to put up with it only because it is a necessary evil in their eyes). Your statements strongly align and match that perspective, and so I have been arguing on those grounds. The required inference on such a perspective is that you would have to not have those things in play for the company to behave in an ethical manner. 

 

The way I see it, it seems to me that we are both looking at a vendor in a bazaar who has presented an item for sale at a given price, and to me, you are calling him a thief, liar, and degenerate, and calling for him to be strung up on charges, whereas I am simply saying that I'll not purchase that at that price because I don't think it's worth it. 

 

If all you mean by greedy, bs pricing, and unfair is that you don't think it's worth that amount of money and you don't want to pay it, but you don't think Lamy is doing anything ethically or morally wrong, just not reading the market correctly, then that's fine and I've no objection. However, the tone and nature of your statements (vocabulary, structure, rhetoric) all makes it seem strongly to me that you are making a stronger claim than that which stands firmly within an ethical and moral frame. I am merely objecting to any claim that what Lamy is doing is unethical, morally repugnant, wrong, or the like. Maybe the market will or will not agree with their offering, but I hardly think that what they are doing is even remotely close to unethical or abusive or disloyal or any other term that suggests things along those lines.