What are people's thoughts on the current high prices of tools compared to say 2 years ago? A table saw I was eyeing up 2 years ago (the Axminster/Harvey AT254LS) was £1599 and is now £2199, and a bandsaw I was considering (Record Power Sabre 350) was £999 and is now £1240, i.e. 20-35% higher prices now than then. Is this all just because everyone took up woodworking during the pandemic combined with factory closures and supply issues, or are these prices likely how things will stay (inflation, Brexit, exchange rates etc)? Crystal ball reading I know, but curious what other people's thoughts are.
Tool price inflation – temporary or permanent?
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Phil Pascoe
Established Member
Transport costs obviously influence, but the inexorable rise in wages in China must also take its toll.
thetyreman
Established Member
demand is bigger than supply right now and the supply chain is really messed up, I think brexit and the pandemic has exposed how weak the UK supply chain really is, so the extra costs are trickling down to the consumer.
Bale
Established Member
Just think to yourself, 'When was the last time prices went down?'
Pete
Pete
Figure actual inflation the last couple of years is hovering around 5%, so ballpark 10% of that just being inflation.
But, on top of that, wages on average in china are up 2.6 times in the last 10 years and probably double that over the last 15.
Add increased demand and if you're a retailer, you have two choices with the high demand:
* don't raise prices and be out of stock
* raise prices and try to have some stock (and be better of business-wise, because you'll be paying more for the next shipment)
One of the worst things you can do as a business is be out of stock with everything - even if people say "well, I like them more, because they sold everything without raising prices", nobody bookmarks a site that's out of stock a few times in a row.
But, on top of that, wages on average in china are up 2.6 times in the last 10 years and probably double that over the last 15.
Add increased demand and if you're a retailer, you have two choices with the high demand:
* don't raise prices and be out of stock
* raise prices and try to have some stock (and be better of business-wise, because you'll be paying more for the next shipment)
One of the worst things you can do as a business is be out of stock with everything - even if people say "well, I like them more, because they sold everything without raising prices", nobody bookmarks a site that's out of stock a few times in a row.
Blackswanwood
Still Learning
Sachakins
The most wasted of days is one without woodwork
Prices only ever go in one direction, once they have maxed the top of the curve, when supply and demand return, they won't slip back to "normal" but likely move to short term sales offers.
Seems most likely to me - if supply problem switches to demand problems, the sellers will start to eat their own. but China was the driver for inexpensive tooling, in relative terms, and before that (here), it was taiwan (but taiwan tools were being compared to american tools and everything made in the US, even relatively small, cost a mint. A 6" jointer with dovetailed ways probably cost $2k equivalent in the 1950s. George Wilson, someone who worked at colonial williamsburg for four decades (And who restored machine tools in his spare time, all the way up to doing some of the work on an hardinge HLVH that measures accuracy in the hundred thousandths of an inch at spec) likes to point out how difficult it was to afford anything for hobby woodworking when he was a kid, and how good some of the taiwanese tools are that he got and then in turn recommended bought for the museum.
We've become entitled.
China cuts the Taiwanese price by another 25 or 30% and we're emboldened further. Who will be willing to work for nothing next?
In the US, amazon had a great deal to do with really knocking out woodworking stationary tools at the neighborhood store level (assuming you live in an urban area and such a thing existed). Everything was suddenly 20% cheaper, delivered freight and you had the ability to return it without dealing with a local store that had a "you work with the manufacturer from here on out or sue us, your choice".
All the way back in 2008, I stopped at highland hardware in Georgia (far from where I am now) and there was almost nothing in there for power tools. the guy at the front said "when amazon started selling power tools, it didn't make sense to sell them any longer".
Again, we've become very entitled. As woodworkers, we've also become very incompetent, demanding that we get cheap power tools to a tight spec that are easy to use and require nothing but follow up sanding. It's not like for profit businesses here use any of this stuff (except for site work), let alone even the sliding TS saws. Those are for one off sheet shops here that don't have a CNC, and that's few. In 1996, I worked in a cabinet factory in the US - everything was cut by CNC back then already with the exception of corner blocks (some guy cut those on a bandsaw - precariously fast - nobody else was allowed to get near the thing).
We are a fickle hobby market egged on by "customer is always right and when I'm the buyer, it had better be cheap and if I find even the slightest issue with it, i'm sending it back". I can't believe the "send it back" mentality also doesn't have something to do with driving prices up.
Phil Pascoe
Established Member
I bought IPA from Hexeal, about £17 for 5 litres. It went up to £28 during the first lockdown. It's back down to what it was before.
johnnyb
Established Member
I can't help thinking 2007 global financial crisis was when tools took off pricewise. I think everyone is profiteering. the petrol crisis seems a bit made up. maybe to get wages down(by issuing visas)the haulage companies have thrown a wobbler
just my opinion, but I think the groups taking advantage of shortfalls are less cunning than that. I think they take advantage when a gift shows up on their doorstep, though.
Separately, there's also some scaremongering. I keep hearing about how natural gas prices are going to go up (which scares the old people as it's the default method of heating here in fracking country).
i got a contract offer in my mail the other day to lock in the gas price at $2.99 per million BTUs (don't worry, it's not that cheap - the gas company adds about $6 or $8 to that to distribute it and charge customer and socialist fees). That said, when I bought my house in 2006, before fracking, the gas price was $14 per million BTUs, then plus more.
If this scary story is to materialize, I don't think the contract market is aware of it (it won't happen here, anyway - there are frackers chomping at the bit with stalled drilling projects waiting for the price to rise so they can sell the byproducts that are taken aside from the gas - they don't care if the gas is break even as the liquids/solids that come along with it are profitable.)
Fuel is the same - if you get fuel above $100 a barrel more than a few months, we could probably get 15 million barrels a day out of the shale regions for a long time, and the rest of the world will have stuff coming online.
The more worrying thing would be people who are not of means buying stuff at the top of the market when inflation is high but interest low. If houses go up 50% (which they have done here in the last 5 years or so) and the loan rates rise, the values of the houses will go down and people with low equity in their properties will walk away.
Anyone remember 2008?
Ttrees
Iroko loco!
Why is machinery gotten nearly 3 times as expensive, say twice for arguments sake in the last decade,
but smaller items still selling for the same money without any loss in quality?
but smaller items still selling for the same money without any loss in quality?
which smaller items? Lithium capacity is about a tenth of what it was a dozen years, ago, which has gone a long way in keeping cordless tools in check pricewise (and making the low end of the market far more capable - lithium used to keep the low cost tools in nicd, which is awfully hard to tolerate as soon as you've had anything else).
I have bought so few power tools in the last 10 years that I don't know what stuff costs, but I see jet's updated version of a bandsaw that I once had has gone from 1199 to 2499 from 2006 to now. they were sold at least once (add at least 20% to prices for that - nobody buys a business to do the same thing as the prior owner, they buy because they think they can put the screws to the brand loyal and market more), and the saw is a little better. I'd bet the price goes up another 15 percent in the next year or so.
what's gone here (and more than in just tools) is the drop shippers who used to sell things lots lower than retail. I got two ibg-8 jet grinders earlier this year or late last year for just under $260 each with shipping. They're now $380, but there were a lot for $350 or $360 at that time, including amazon. The drop shippers willing to make $10 and have amazon or walmart distribution do the order processing seem to be gone, though. Maybe because they were selling stuff promo-ed by jet to dump tools that weren't selling at retail.
coupons and restaurant deals are gone, too - no need to bring people in at break even if you can't find staff that makes more on juiced up unemployment and isn't in a rush to go back to work.
I have bought so few power tools in the last 10 years that I don't know what stuff costs, but I see jet's updated version of a bandsaw that I once had has gone from 1199 to 2499 from 2006 to now. they were sold at least once (add at least 20% to prices for that - nobody buys a business to do the same thing as the prior owner, they buy because they think they can put the screws to the brand loyal and market more), and the saw is a little better. I'd bet the price goes up another 15 percent in the next year or so.
what's gone here (and more than in just tools) is the drop shippers who used to sell things lots lower than retail. I got two ibg-8 jet grinders earlier this year or late last year for just under $260 each with shipping. They're now $380, but there were a lot for $350 or $360 at that time, including amazon. The drop shippers willing to make $10 and have amazon or walmart distribution do the order processing seem to be gone, though. Maybe because they were selling stuff promo-ed by jet to dump tools that weren't selling at retail.
coupons and restaurant deals are gone, too - no need to bring people in at break even if you can't find staff that makes more on juiced up unemployment and isn't in a rush to go back to work.
RobinBHM
Established Member
Its mostly to do with the pandemic, which has royally screwed up supply chains -the price of container shipping has increased exponentially.
They will probably go the same way as everyone else through industrial history and become expensive labour, then going on how much they have invested in overseas projects they will then use that nation as cheaper labour and one day it just might be our turn again as cheap labour.
How much is due to genuine reasons compared to people jumping on the bandwagon for a fast buck!
I don't think their plans are that long term for economics. They're more or less becoming a closed and monitored society and giving up a bit on the idea of economy over all. Hopefully, they don't have a goal of nationalizing everything into a war machine - we saw that in the 1930s already.
Ttrees
Iroko loco!
If I were to take my recent purchases of a vice and clamps or a welder from liddles,
or anything in a pound shop, the price seems unchanged.
Some cheap engineering tools to be had also.
Is Veritas tools gotten more expensive, just checked axi 2009 magazine
bevel setter was £24.20, now £29.18.
Had a bandsaw which was just over a grand, now equivalent is just over three.
It doesn't make sense to me.
or anything in a pound shop, the price seems unchanged.
Some cheap engineering tools to be had also.
Is Veritas tools gotten more expensive, just checked axi 2009 magazine
bevel setter was £24.20, now £29.18.
Had a bandsaw which was just over a grand, now equivalent is just over three.
It doesn't make sense to me.
heimlaga
Established Member
The plentiful access to relatively cheap power tools which the western world has enjoyed for 30 years or so proved to be an exception. We should all have seen this coming 20 years ago.
The phenomena relied on supply chains so economically slimmed that technically they could not be sustained except temporarily under ideal and stable conditions.
The phenomena relied on comparatively high wages in the western world which has lost it's manufacturing base but still can keep up it's economical strength for a little while.
The phenomena relied on a middle class with disposable income all while the middle class is bound to schrink in relation to the manufacturing base
The phenomena relied on cheap yet dwindling natural resources.
The phenomena relied on cheap labour working under slavery like conditions under an oppressive government eager to keep labour cheap in order to create a manufacturing base needed to build political and military power in the future.
Now it is back to normal.
However generations before us have repaired and made tools for their own use so it is easy to see what to do.
The phenomena relied on supply chains so economically slimmed that technically they could not be sustained except temporarily under ideal and stable conditions.
The phenomena relied on comparatively high wages in the western world which has lost it's manufacturing base but still can keep up it's economical strength for a little while.
The phenomena relied on a middle class with disposable income all while the middle class is bound to schrink in relation to the manufacturing base
The phenomena relied on cheap yet dwindling natural resources.
The phenomena relied on cheap labour working under slavery like conditions under an oppressive government eager to keep labour cheap in order to create a manufacturing base needed to build political and military power in the future.
Now it is back to normal.
However generations before us have repaired and made tools for their own use so it is easy to see what to do.
beech1948
Established Member
Sort of intrigued by the thought that I could make many of my metal tools in wood. So I have tried a few:-
1) A drill press which turns out to be as accurate as my old Meddings but also has power assisted rise and fall.
2) A saw blade sharpener....very successful
3) A band saw blade sharpener....also successful
Next is going to be a table saw based on a Festool TS 75.
1) A drill press which turns out to be as accurate as my old Meddings but also has power assisted rise and fall.
2) A saw blade sharpener....very successful
3) A band saw blade sharpener....also successful
Next is going to be a table saw based on a Festool TS 75.
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