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I’m actually surprised it’s as high as 30%. Would’ve expected 10% tops.

Reminds me of that Planet Money special where they made their own tshirts from scratch, as “finding a cotton farmer to buy cotton” from scratch. The thing that added the most cost was the transport from the dock in NYC to the store.

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Ah damn, I just commented about planet money. Seriously, it was totally perspective changing. Anyone who even has a modicum of interest in econ/business, especially as it pertains to the topic here, should listen to the t shirt saga. It's excellent storytelling even for those who aren't economics nerds. Still have my squirrel t-shirt I bought to this day :)

https://apps.npr.org/tshirt/#/title

I'm sure manufacturing costs is like 10% or even less, but between the factories in e.g. China and the US or Europe, there's container transport overseas, import taxes and fees, and other such transportation and logistics overhead.

I freqently find myself in a supermarket and think that the packaging for the products there was more expensive than the product itself. Plus the logistics.

Shipping over the ocean from China to the US is very cheap.

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