Australian Helmet standards

Walrus Wrote:
If it's $20,000 to get the standard, and the average cost of a Giro
helmet is $200...then you dno't have to be Einstein to figure out that
they only have to sell 100 before they're infront. Doesn't seem like
much to me.

Given Limar/Met/Selev etc can do it, and Giro is more well known thanks
to Lance, there has to be another reason for it.



True. But that $200 average price for a Giro helmet you pay does not
all go to the importer/distributor who is the one who pays for the
certification (factory might pay in some cases but that does not change
the logic, just some of the numbers). Say the importer gets 20% of the
$200 that you pay. After overheads, the importer clears say 10% or $20
per helmet. Importer would have to sell 1,000 helmets before breaking
even.


Now, say you are Mr Pacific Brands. You have a choice of 10 Giro
helmets, 10 Bell helmets and 10 Dunlop helmets (I think they do Dunlop)
to import, get certified and distribute. You can cover all the price
points in the market by selecting 15 out of the 30 helmets across all 3
brands. Certification costs $300,000 instead of $600,000. And instead
of having to sell 30,000 helmets before you break even, you only have
to sell 15,000.

You do your numbers and decide that it is not worth bringing in all the
range.

You will miss out on some customers who want to buy a Giro model at a
price point that you have covered with a Bell and who go and buy a
Limar or a Met but you are prepared to miss out on a few customers
campared to the costs of certification and the number of helmets you
would have to sell to break even.


(the above is a simple scenario that ignores the value of bringing in
the top of the range helmet at a loss because it is good PR, elesticity
of demand for individual brands of helmets at certain price points,
colour and size availability of helmets and the price of yak butter in
Tibet)

SteveA


--
SteveA

Walrus wrote:
SteveA Wrote:

If I recall correctly, the cost of certification is around $20,000 per
model of helmet. That is quite a bit to recover per model of helmet in
a small market like Australia.


SteveAIf it's $20,000 to get the standard, and the average cost of a Giro

helmet is $200...then you dno't have to be Einstein to figure out that
they only have to sell 100 before they're infront. Doesn't seem like
much to me.

Given Limar/Met/Selev etc can do it, and Giro is more well known thanks
to Lance, there has to be another reason for it.



The money only comes out of the profit from each helmet, you still have
other costs associated with the production and transport costs and so
on. Try the maths again with only the profit portion.

Marty

On 2005-09-20, Walrus wrote:

SteveA Wrote:
If I recall correctly, the cost of certification is around $20,000 per
model of helmet. That is quite a bit to recover per model of helmet in
a small market like Australia.


SteveAIf it's $20,000 to get the standard, and the average cost of a Giro
helmet is $200...then you dno't have to be Einstein to figure out that
they only have to sell 100 before they're infront. Doesn't seem like
much to me.

Your mathematics is faulty. If the average cost to manufacture a helmet
is (say) $50, and they can count on amortising the standards testing
over 100 helmets, the final cost is $50 + ($20,000 / 100) = $250. Then
you have to add on the cost of shipping the helmet to the sales place;
the retail markup; and the manufacturer also making some money in the
deal (otherwise why bother?)

If they can amortise the cost over 1,000 helmets, the final cost, before
profit margins and transport, becomes $50 + ($20,000 / 1000) = $70.
That's still a hefty leap in cost of about 40%.

Basic desire for a profit means a helmet manufacturer will only fork out
for the testing if they can see them getting more than that back, in
reasonably short order. Giro is obviously saying that they don't see
that they can, for whatever reason.

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On Mon, 19 Sep 2005 16:31:34 +0800, Graeme Dods wrote:


Exactly. I wouldn't want to be them if someone crashes, gets
a head injury while wearing a non-approved helmet, and decides to sue
them.

Have you ever read any of the blurb that comes out of helmet manufacturers?
Not even the manufacturers claim it will prevent head injury in the event
of a crash. All they ever have on their web sites are "cool feature",
"sporty looks" etc (their "in box" blurb is even more clear, usually "if
you hurt your head when wearing this, don't come crying to us" type stuff).
That way they're pretty much in the clear when it comes to claims against
them, and by extension, anyone mandating their use who also do not make
such protective claims. Any sporting body could mandate the wearing of a
frilly pink tutu, but if they make no claims for its effects (implied or
otherwise) then nobody can say it didn't do what it was meant to do.

However, if said sporting body says, "wear your helmet to protect from head
injuries", they're on more dubious ground.

Graeme

Unfortunately what is reasonable, what is the law and what are insurance
requirements often have no connection or correlation.
btw if you crash and smash your knee while not wearing an approved
helmet, is one covered by insurance? I did this once, and the first thing
my concerned observer said was, "just as well you were wearing your helmet!"

*Sigh*

Peter

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