Comment by vacri | Hacker News Reader

Comment by vacri | Hacker News Reader

the price over a mass amount of units (say 100,000 units)

This almost made me laugh out loud. Exactly how many kettles does the author think sells each year? Multiply by models and again by manufacturers, and you're talking millions of kettles. Even if you consider that one model will last multiple years, manufacturers don't buy supply batches that last for years. Some industries go in the extreme other direction - the local car industry got its stock-on-shelf lifetime down to 48 minutes from part arriving to part being screwed into car.

Similarly, retail markup is generally 20-50% of the final cost. If you think this is too high (it really isn't) then I suggest you use your new formula to undercut the existing market and disrupt away. Other significant costs are transport and wholesalers (who aren't always the manufacturers). Kettles are bulky items that consume a lot of space in storage and transport. On top of all this, every party involved in the transaction is entitled to make some profit, and not just work for costs. There's also regulatory compliance, things like the CE mark.

Looking at an item and stating that the price shouldn't be more than parts + amortised kickback to the designers is naievity, plain and simple.

Say 10% of American households and 80% of British households buy electric tea kettles that last exactly 10 years each.

That's 10 million total market in the US (100 x .1) and about 16 million in the UK (~20 x .8).

So 26 million total market with a level 1/10th per year or 2.6 million kettles per year. At 100k run per year per manufacturer, the market can then support 26 different models easily.

On the second point, It seemed that he was adding the 2x retail markup into his figures. If you'd followed the link on amazon, you'd see that $90 was market down from about $200.

Sometimes it's best to ask "what would you have to believe for this to be right" before you tear into someone for faulty analysis. All of his number easily pass my smoke tests.

Coming from the UK I can't believe that only 80% of households own an electric kettle. The idea of going to someone's house and not finding a kettle seems genuinely ludicrous. Not just houses - almost every break room of every business will have one.

Of course, they cost quite a bit less on average in the UK.

You just described coffee makers in the US. Tea kettles on the other hand... can't recall ever seeing one in real life.

Maybe the other 20% own non-electric kettles, like us, or have one-touch boiling water systems, like my parents.

When our last electric kettle blew up 3-4 years ago, we decided to go with a good, old fashioned metal kettle that we use on the hob. Works well, doesn't ever break, and even makes it a bit more of an 'event' to put the kettle on as you get all the boiling sounds, the whistle going off, etc.

My parents, on the other hand, have a thing that produces boiling water at the touch a button so they just use that to dump water into their mugs instead.

Either way, an electric kettle is far from the only solution .

Kettle on the hob sounds so much more fun then boiling water at the touch of a button.

I feel like there needs to be some ceremony to the tea making, it cant just be pored from a tap there needs to be some kind of wait preceding it.

Drinking tea in the UK isn't about the fun of the kettle. It's a matter of necessity and the whole process is utilitarian. An efficient and predictable water boiler is what is needed, not a 'fun' tea making ceremony. The English largely drink the fannings of tea leaves (poorest quality) it's not about ceremony, fun, or quality, believe me.

We only drink tea when people visit, so the kettle does play a role. Being gas, it takes longer to boil, giving a nice period of often tea-related small talk before it's shrieking for mercy. If one is in an office or one drinks tea because one's addicted to it then yes, the kettle would be more of an inconvenience, but not everyone lives such fast, non ceremonial lives.

I feel you are not embracing the tea drinking enough.

I am well aware what the English drink, being one of them and all!

Maybe the other 20% own non-electric kettles

You mean those old fashioned kettles that are little more than a pot that you put on the hob? Nope. No way do 20% of UK houses have that sort of old fashioned system. That's like claiming 20% of UK houses still have outhouses and don't have indoor toilets.

It always amazes me how the ridiculuous old fashioned non-electric kettles are still popular in USA.

Don't forget they have 110v but the same current limits on their plugs, so at best their kettles will use 1.5kW. The speed advantage isn't there.

If you have a hot water-based appliance the coffee maker offers far greater convenience. Now you have even less reason for a kettle.

I've not found coffee makers terribly convenient for making tea.

I know you are kidding but the pod/cup 'coffee' makers support tea too, now that is certainly convenient :)

I did also mention boiling water systems like one touch "Quick Cup" type jugs or even boiling water taps as are popular in posher houses now.

Nonetheless, I don't find it so farfetched. We are a wellish-to-do gadget heavy household and we're content with a gas kettle. Other people continue to drive manual transmission cars. Some people even use Internet Explorer! It's a funny old world.

Funny you should mention transmission. Something like 80% of cars in the UK are manual transmission.

Wait, a kettle[1] that you put on the stove and whistles when it's boiling isn't the standard in the UK?

It's what I use for preparing hot water, and I have no issue with it. That's when I want tea or french-press coffee [2]. Sometimes I use an electric percolator[3] for coffee, and what a cup it can make!

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Stainless-Teakettle-Litres-Whistling-X...

[2] http://www.amazon.com/Bodum-Brazil-French-Coffee-34-Ounce/dp...

[3] http://www.amazon.com/Presto-02811-12-Cup-Stainless-Coffee/d...

Nope. In UK and even in Australia where I am, electric kettles are the norm. My grandmother did use a stovetop kettle though.

I have never seen a stove-top kettle in use at someone's house in the UK, and I lived there almost all of my life.

Stove top kettles are used but they are less efficient than electric kettles.

240v 13a is handy for things like kettles.

Wait, a kettle[1] that you put on the stove and whistles when it's boiling isn't the standard in the UK?

Nope, it's a hilarious anacronism. Like seeing a washboard to hand wash your clothes. :)

Well here's one data point: my building includes gas in the rent, so there's no incentive for me to buy an expensive and costly to run electric kettle when a stovetop model can boil an unlimited amount of water for zero marginal cost.

(I'm originally from the UK, but I adapted pretty quickly when I moved to the US and saw the price of electric kettles).

Probably due to their popularity, eletric kettles can be gotten for very cheap in the UK (<£5).

I've seen precisely one stove-top kettle in my life, here in the UK: My grandmother owned one before she died, but she spent most of her life on a farm with outdoor toilets and no electricity, and never really adapted from that mindset.

Having said that I've bought only two kettles in my life, once in 1998 when I bought my first flat and realized I didn't own one - all prior rental properties came with one - and one last year when that died.

I remember spending far too much time picking up kettles in John Lewis, and other "fancy" stores, because I knew I'd be using it multiple times a day for many years and wanted something that looked and felt nice.

How often does the average Briton drink tea?

> It always amazes me how the ridiculuous old fashioned non-electric kettles are still popular in USA.

One thing that I find genuinely amazing is that power-companies can spot when there are commercial-breaks in TV programs by people in the country making tea en masse:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_pickup

Not only can they see the spike, they have to plan for it. I've heard for some popular programmes/events (like a sports event or popular episode), they'll employ someone to watch the TV show and press a button the second the adverts come on, to turn on the power generators that can spin up quickly. There's a power generator that can come fully into operation in 12 seconds[1]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_power_station

We can buy budget kettles for £5 in supermarkets. Plastic, not nice, but functional.

Yeah. In fact, my current kettle cost £2.99. That was 6 ish months ago.

I buy them, and treat them as throwaway. They seem to last as long as £30 ish kettles, so why bother spending more? My cheapo ones last about a year, then I just get a new one. Awful for the environment, but there you go.

I suspect it is somewhere around 80%.

It seems inconceivable to me that a US house might not have a microwave (even unfurnished apartments I rented from slumlords in college came with microwaves), but apparently many do not: http://www.eia.gov/emeu/recs/appliances/appliances.html

No. Microwaves are a general cooking thing, and relatively new. Not considered necessary. Tea, in the UK, is so ingrained in the culture, and has been around so long, that kettles are almost like cutlery. I can't imagine a house or business in the UK without one. Hell, you even find kettles in vans out on site. Where there is a Brit, with in about 20m, you'll find a kettle, and a tea bag.

The only exception to that could well be from recent immigrants. They may not be in to tea in the same way, and may not be so wedded to the kettle. Even then, one British thing immigrants quickly pick up, possibly to help integrate, its drinking tea.

In short, dont mess with the British and our tea.

Oh, BTW.

Im British, I can't stand tea. Nasty foul bitter bile. Who the hell likes this stuff? Surely only sadists actually like tea? I like coffee.....

New or not, I literally cannot picture a home without a microwave. My best guess is that most are the homes of immigrants.

Interestingly I live in the UK and have neither a microwave nor an electric kettle. Incidentally, I am technically an immigrant (from the US), though not with the connotations of what I assume you were envisioning.

I don't have a microwave. The only use I'd have for one is heating the occasional ready meal for my child, or heating milk for drinks. These are rare so I haven't bothered buying one. I have a fridge but it's not plugged in.

Nasty foul bitter bile.

Mnay teas are not at all bitter. Did you only try the cheap tea? PG Tips, Tetley, Typhoo, that sort of thing? The cheap stuff is horrible.

British tanks since the Centurion[1] all contain kettles or boiling vessels for tea. Don't mess with their tea, even in the heat of battle!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centurion_tank

that's amazing. and for anyone who is curious about what they actually look like: http://www.militarysystems-tech.com/military-gallery/electro...

"I own a house without a microwave, ask me anything”?

Seriously, though: never saw the point. I do all my cooking from scratch, and heat up leftovers on the stove. Once every few months I find myself doing something where it would be more convenient to have a microwave, but it’s no more often than I find myself wishing I had a sous-vide cooker or a bread machine or electric kettle or any number of other kitchen gadgets. We have a smallish kitchen, and I’d rather have more counter space to work on when I’m cooking.

Thanks for mentioning Sous Vide. I found it interesting that a precisely temp controlled waterbath product only costs a little more than the crude kettles mentioned in the article, and the internet is full of folks who put great effort into creating homemade $40 sous vide rigs.

Also despite what the article claims, water doesn't boil at one temperature, if you program a PID or whatever to keep on firing until the water hits 100C you'll be in for a bit of a surprise in Denver or some mountain towns which are much higher than Denver. I know Big Sky MT is about 9000 ft ASL, water boils at 190F or so.

Heating up a stove takes considerably more energy than using a microwave.

On my microwave, it takes about 96,000 joules (800W x 2') to heat up a plate with leftovers, while doing it on my oven it takes around 432,000J (1800W * 4').

Speaking as someone with a commercial-grade sous-vide bath and variable-temperature PID-controlled pouring kettle sitting on his worktop, a microwave is also a useful gadget even for high-end cookery.

It's one of the best ways to cook many green vegetables, for example, and also makes remarkably good poached eggs:

http://www.bonappetit.com/test-kitchen/inside-our-kitchen/ar...

It’s not that I don’t think they’re useful; rather that the marginal utility (for us) of having one isn’t worth the kitchen space that it would cost us. Once every few months I wish we had one, but once every few months I wish I had lots of things. I try not to make a habit of rushing out to buy them.

I guess I'd ask how you got a house without a microwave. I've never lived without a microwave, but I have never purchased a microwave either.

An oven, a microwave, and a fridge are the three appliances I have been able to count on always being present when I move in somewhere. Typically the microwave is build into the cabinetry.

Apparently the previous owner didn’t feel the need to have one either. Note that we are discussing a house that was rebuilt from a barn in 1938 (no one really knows how old the barn was at the time). There are no kitchen cabinets into which a microwave might be built, just open shelves, which I find quite satisfactory.

When I redo the kitchen, I’ll add a range hood, but the next owner will also be buying a house without a microwave.

I think it's a regional thing. Every house I have owned came with the washer, dryer, fridge and stove. Even after I substantially upgraded the stoves in my first two houses, I left them there when I moved. Those houses were built in the 1950's and 1980's. Only my current house, built in the early 2000's came with a microwave.

OTOH, I'm told it's common in other parts of the country (I'm in the upper Midwest) to take major appliances when you move.

They also last 2-3 years at most ime. There was a time my old office had the kettle break every 3-4 months.

Yeah, but think how many times an office kettle boils compared to a household one.

"Overall ownership of kettles has declined from 83 per cent of the population in 2008 to 78 per cent in 2012."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2262020/Humble-kettl...

Seems to be a confusion of terms. 80% of the population is not normally the same as 80% of households.

I was pulling reasonable numbers out of the air to do an order of magnitude/what would you have to believe analysis.

It's unclear from that article what "ownership" means, given that a kettle is a household-level item, I'm not sure if it would matter if you did your survey as "do you own a kettle" or "is there a kettle in your house" -- they should sum up to about the same percentage. Maybe a smaller percentage of the population would say they own a kettle than would say they have one in their house due to different interpretations of what it means to "own" something. I'd expect those differences to be within the margin of error of most surveys.

Not to mention work places. If someone doesn't own a kettle at home, but there is a kettle at work that they use to drink tea, then they essentially are part of the UK kettle-culture.

"80% of the population is not normally the same as 80% of households."

Sure, but I was surprised by how low the figure was. I would have expected it to be more like 90-95%.

For the sake of the previous argument, however, this hardly matters. If the fraction is 100%, then 30 models of kettles can be supported at 100k/year. This is an order of magnitude argument, not a precise census.

More than 80% of households have a kettle in the UK, I would say 99%. That doesn't count businesses, shops or other places that will certainly also have a kettle.

We do love our tea.

I don't even drink tea, and I have an electric kettle. In case any guests want tea. It's the "done thing", as they say.

I have an electrict kettle and not once though of it as a "tea making device". There are dozens of reasons I might need boiling water and it's most often used for making coffee.

Another good use is dual-core boiling. When I need boiling water for cooking, I put some water in a pot and turn on the stove. But I also put water in my 2 kW electric kettle and will have boilng water within a few minutes.

Good point. I've done this in the past (i.e. back when I was at university) - speed up cooking ramen noodles (or "super noodles") by pouring a boiled kettle into the hot pan.

But these days my kettle is almost solely used as a stand-by "tea making device" :)

It's not even really about our love of tea. I think it's mainly about the US power standard being too low voltage to deliver enough power to boil water in an acceptable time.

While my electric kettle here is only 1kW compared to a standard 3kW in the UK, how else should one boil water for tea? It's still as fast as heating on a hob.

3kW is faster than heating on a hob by enough to be worth the cost of cluttering your kitchen with an extra appliance. 1kW isn't, for many people.

I worked at a company where they took away our kettle from the office kitchen. (They had just bought a wall heater that produced "quite hot" water, and thought that it would be safer if we just used that.)

Boy they got a lot of stick for that.

Did they also confiscate everyones scissors?

Do a google image search on 'kettle' and you'll see that 26 is a laughably small number for the amount of available models.

Strangely, almost all of them are pictured with their spout pointing to the left. It's a bit like a Where's Wally, trying to find one oriented for the left-handers amongst us.

Maybe it's more of a handle pointing to the right? Most people are right handed so that would make sense.

aside from the 80% mark. 10 years is too long to assume a kettle lasting.

Just bought our 3rd kettle in 7 years after the previous one developed a leak (and the one before that, the on switch liked to fall off)

> 10% of American households [...] buy electric tea kettles

No way. I've never seen an electric tea kettle. Tea kettles, sure; but not electric ones. I don't believe anywhere near 10% of US households have one.

We've got plenty of bread machines, waffle irons, electric skillets, toaster ovens, crock pots, and every possible variety of coffee maker, espresso machines, rice cookers, etc. So we're not adverse to electric appliances.

Myself, I've got a stovetop kettle that I never use. If I want tea, I heat water in the microwave.

I thought that markup was implicitly accepted in blog. I of course do not think that the price should be just the cost of the parts. In fact, I did mention that the fact that both $10 kettles and $39 kettles exist implies that there is some form of price discrimination. The difference in price is the additional markup that the manufacturer can get away with. As I mentioned, my marginal utility does not increase with the markup - a $39 kettle gives me the same utility as a $10 kettle.

As for 100,000 units, yeah, that was probably a mistake. Australia only has 22 million people. No idea why I arbitrarily picked 100,000.

Yeah, I read through in more detail and saw that lurking towards the end. Just came back to edit, perhaps delete the comment but it's already replied-to. :)

The costings at the end are off. Testing is much less that $5/unit for these kind of things, for example. Usually you'll have a common testbench across all products - it'll be much lower per unit, and not tied to a particular model. Also, retailers aren't the only ones in the pricing process - as I say above, wholesalers/distributors and transport also get figured into the cost. It all adds up. Marketing costs are mostly borne by the retailer portion of the price, as the wholesale channel marketing is much more limited and cost-effective (no tv or radio spots, print one catalogue and you're fine for a quarter/year, run a more niche website only for retailers, etc)

The Australia-limited market thing is less of an issue - a kettle will have a market wider than this. But kettles generally last a long time, and there are hundreds of models out there. Though to honest, after a friend's horror story of one day finding a cockroach in her kettle that had been boiled white, I'm much keener on glass kettles now...

Same utility? Not if you fear your $10 plastic kettle so much that, after a single circuit-breaker throw, you have to discard it!

Never mind the $39 kettle. Totaled over ten years, the $150 kettle's seemingly-tiny advantages in reliability, capacity, features, and style over the $10 kettle can be worth way more than its $140 price premium.

Do you have a source for the part about 48mins from part arrival to installation? I find that data point fascinating and would like to learn more about how this is pulled off.

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