I am often told that my products are too expensive... and everything is relative, right? Because it depends entirely on what you compare it to...
I'll try to explain why this is going to be a difficult article, but probably so important...
We live in a country that imports clothes for three times its population every year...
Cheap clothes are pouring in and we have become so speed blind that we don't want to pay what it actually costs anymore, but we take advantage of people who work in slave-like conditions so that we don't buy expensive... or so that we can buy new every month...
If we were to do like that, that we compare time against time , and thought about our own salary?
- We can take a minimum wage of approx. SEK 120/hour.
- Sewing a simple top first requires that the cotton has been grown, harvested, knitted into fabric and dyed - we now take in this example only the labor time that we can put at one hour.
- Then the garment must be designed, pattern parts must be made, and then cut out, we spend 30 minutes here.
- Everything must then be sewn together into a top and we do it in 30 minutes.
- The garment must be shipped to the store, hung up, priced and displayed and sold to you, we do this in a quarter of an hour.
- In total, we now end up at two hours and 15 minutes.
- Then the state must have employer contributions and 25% in VAT, and the worker must have 12% for holiday pay.
So to exchange our time for the time for this garment, 2.25 x 120 + employer contributions and holiday pay 12% = SEK 416 + VAT = SEK 520 and then we have not paid anything for material, color, sewing thread, etc.
No one has made any money, but we only pay for the work as if the person who made it did it for the same salary as we have...
You can of course see this example with the fact that we have much higher wages here in Sweden, but someone has still done it and how can they survive?
So the next time you shop, you might ask yourself, how can it be so cheap?
