why do some toothbrushes cost hundreds of dollars? What exactly are they doing that makes them so much better?

Question

You can get a manual toothbrush for $1 or some fancy electric toothbrush for over $200. Can it really be cleaning your teeth that much better?

In: Engineering

Answer 1

Framing is a marketing technique.

If your company makes toothbrushes for $0.10 and wants to sell them for $1 to make money, you advertise them for $1. But if they don’t sell what do you do? You resort to framing. Now you make 3 different toothbrushes that all cost $0.10 to make. One you sell for $0.20, one you sell for $1, and one you sell for $12. No one buys the $0.20 because we assume that it is the cheapest one and is inferior and will fall apart. The $12 is too expensive for a toothbrush, and no one who respects the value of money would ever buy that toothbrush. But the $1 toothbrush? Suddenly, because of Framing, its the Goldielocks and is just right.

Toothbrushes are insainly cheap to make and have astronomical markups, even the electric ones. The vast majority of the profits are spent on marketing to make it seem like they have reinvented the science of getting stuff off your teeth to create framing before you even get to the store, but in reality there hasn’t been some game changing breakthrough in dental care in +40 years.