Why do you think Gillette has abandon double edge razors but still has a significant market share in the double edge razor business? I have a theroy about what Proactor and Gamble is thinking but would like to hear what forum members think.

Hmm.. I never even realized that until you mentioned it. This thread could prove to be some real interesting reading

Money, money, money, and more money. They can mass produce cheap crap to mediocre standards and charge a buttload for it while keeping a captive audience with proprietary blades that only they produce. And I'm ok with that. As much as I'd like to see Gillette and Schick take a page out of their past and produce some brand new, quality DE razors, I'd hate to see them find a way to change the DE market and replicate the business model of the cartridge sales.

Edited to add, their DE blades seem to be produced and marketed more towards countries that don't seem to have the consumer mindset that makes a cartridge based sales model financially viable.

I agree with Corey.
Anywhere they can make money. Actually there are still Gillette double edge razors in some countries, but they aren't made like they used to. Cheap plastic. But if they can't sell their cartridge systems somewhere, they have to find another way to make money from them.

Assuming that there market strategy is, and I think that it is, to force consumers to buy there blades and only there blades the double edge market would seem counter productive to them. Since double edge are public domain in design I would think that Proctor and Gamble would have abandon them completely long ago. I would think that Proctor and Gamble would have concluded that they need to compete in this market in order to make dollars which is not something that they want to do so they would have abandon the market all together.

Perhaps Proctor and Gamble makes enough dollars from the double edge market to make it worth their while to produce the blades. I don't see how the double edge blades fits with their business model.

Although I note that they do not make any of the double edge blades in the US. Perhaps they precieve the non-US world as more savy then US consumers and therefore they need to compete. Perhaps its that US consumers are simply dumb and are willing to swallow any nonsense we are spoon fed. I am seeing some evidence to suggest that the US and western european contries are more susceptiable to advertising then other parts of the world and as a consequence we get spoon fed nonsense such as cartridge razors.

Going to explore this on another forum and see if I can see something interesting between the two forums.

Unfortunately, there is no Gillette Company but only a product line of a multinational marketing company (P&G) which owns the Gillette name. Its last day of market trading - symbol G on the NYSE was September 30, 2005. As much as I bemoan the passing of Gillette its focus on razors and blades had been gone for decades and the last person to find any value in the Gillette Company was probably Warren Buffet.

Here in the US of A, we like to use things, throw it away and go buy another one. Newer products is what we want. Other countries tend to have a different value of what demonstrates wealth and success. Slow food vs fast, having one or 2 good razors and replacing the blades at a minimal cost, a puck of fine shaving soap that lasts for months vs canned goo that lasts weeks, etc. Here, we think buying a new one and tossing the old one is a sure sign of wealth and success. The more stuff we can chuck in the nearest landfill, the richer we are. Of course, companies that are capable of mass production of any given item is going to take advantage of our cultural tendencies. Marketing disposable product here and marketing and manufacturing DE blades in other countries is good business for them. They already owned the machinery to produce the blades and Americans weren't interested anymore.

the thing to remember that, worldwide, the majority of people use DE over cartridges*, as usual we're different here in the USA

*or so I've read/been informed

I guess Proctor and Gamble has been making a fortune off our American desire to fill the nearest landfill as fast as possible. Is this the reason why Proctor and Gamble can make so much dollars off a proprietary product. I guess in my line of work I trained for years to believe - proprietary bad - non-proprietary good. The IT industry believes this a lot and years ago beat up IBM for trying to make the PC industry proprietary. I guess this is why I am not shaving with a cartridge razor. IT industry competition - Good - Proprietary Bad. Proctor and Gamble - Propietary - Good - Compeition - Bad.

I think that pretty well hits the nail on the head there.

In the U.S. it always has to be the newest equates to the best. Thas what the television tells us all the time. Oh look, 3 blades have to be better than 2. Oh look over there, 4 blades are better and then 5 and so on. Then the marketing campaign kicks in to tell us how stupid we are for not using the newest product. From a child until adulthood many of us spent so much time in front of the TV that we sometimes take it as the truth. My 11 year old daughter is that way, I don't know how many times she has seen one of those "As Seen on TV" products in the store and thinks that we just have to have it. Then I have to explain to her that they usually are not the miracle items that they show.

In the other countries the disposable money for the average man just isn't there. They have to be more concerned with putting food on the table rather than just using the latest razor. Therefore the blade companies have to cater to the cheap D/E market to make money.

They're in the blade market only for DE for the same reason they give away multiblade razor handles. The handles arent worth anything to them, just the blades. They're a hassle to produce and decent ones wouldnt be worth giving away for free. They're blades are more expensive than other companies. Why produce the car when you can just sell the tires? Its about money, plain and simple.

Gillette came out with the Trac II almost 40 years ago. Proctor & Gamble has only owned Gillette for a little over 4 years, so blaming them for any of this mess is not really valid.

Blade sales has been the focus of Gillette since day one. SuperSpeed razors were just the Fusion handles of yesteryear.

Thank you. It seems as though everyone thinks Gillette woke up one day and decided to gouge people on the price of blades- Gillette was the very first company to use this revolutionary new sales tactic, in fact it's even called the Razor Blade Loss Leader Business Model- give away the non-disposable base, and make the profit on its inexpensive (to manufacture), but costly (to the consumer) absolutely-needed peripheral.

Going back to the early days, the razor blade was the very first disposable machined product sold in this country. It was the first piece of tooled merchandise that was meant to be used and thrown away- pretty innovative in the days of wooden tires and metal/glass/ceramic everything. Gillette had some fancy, expensive razors- but they also had the entry level razors like the Super Speed that could be had for as little as .75- the same price as a bottle of shampoo or a couple of bars of soap. These were their most popular sellers, and they lost money on every damned one of them.

But, while they lost money on the razor, they more than made up for it on the blades. A ten pack of Gillette blades cost 1.00 in the twenties/thirties. Let's do a little math here; in 1924 the cheapest Gillette razor sold for .75. A ten pack of Gillette blades cost 1.00. A three piece Gillette razor ran all of 1.17 to manufacture, while a pack of blades ran not quite three cents to manufacture. That means that Gillette lost .42 on every razor they sold, but made .97 cents for every pack of blades they sold!

Now, in today's money, that same Gillette razor would cost 14.08 to manufacture, and would sell for 9.02, at a loss to Gillette being 5.05 per every sale. That same pack of blades would cost .36 to manufacture today and would retail for 12.03, meaning they would make a profit of 11.67 per pack.

There's a slight difference in today's Gillette that you have to factor in. Gillette claims to make 37.8 percent profit off of a pack of Fusion/Mach III blades. That means for a 10.00 pack of M3 blades, Gillette brings home about 3.80. That's a pretty big deficiency in profit compared to the olden days- Gillette, in 1924 was making three times as much profit off the double edged blade as they are today with their Fusions and Mach III's.

On the inverse, a new Fusion razor handle (without a motor) retails for around ten dollars- yet they only cost around a dollar to manufacture. That's about 9.00 dollars profit for every non-vibrating Fusion that Gillette sells. Yet, supposedly Gillette gives away as many Fusions as they sell, so...

What I'm getting at here, is that Gillette didn't just turn into the bad guy over night. At the very least, they're less greedy today than they ever were in the past. Sure, they do some dumb stuff, but everybody acts like they've never heard of doing business the Gillette way.

Now, as to why Gillette still makes money in other places on DE razors and blades, quite simply- those countries don't spend as much money as the US and the UK on shaving products, because (and don't flame me for this) they don't have the money to spend like we do. India and Africa are the two biggest consumers of DE razors and blades, but they're also two of the poorest regions in the world. The same reason I shaved with a DE when I was growing up- I didn't have the money to buy the shiny new Sensor or Tracer blades, so DE shaving was done out of necessity.

History lesson over.

Banged out another great response, Mr. Pinaud.

But give me a break, Rob; you did not start with a DE because you were so poor you couldn't afford a cart. razor.

I also like stating people I started with a DE because that's what all the men in my family used, and that's what I was taught - but stop fantasizing! :happy102

PS - Does P&G actually make the current cheap Gillette DE Razors sold in the third-world (like my beloved 7 O'Clock), or is it another manufacturer simply licensing the Gillette name? I've heard Lord pumps out these products - and that make sense given a series of clues.

Nope, I started with a DE because that's all I knew. See, all my dad ever used was a Gillette DE, so when I first started shaving (at 13) he gave me ten bucks and sent me down to the store to get one like his, which is what I did. Not too long after we got a Sensor Excel in the mail and it blew me away. So when I went to go get some carts for it the price blew me away- so really, until I got out on my own (I basically left home when I was 15) and started working, I couldn't purchase the carts for the razors I liked. Even then, things like food, beer and cigarettes were more of a priority so fancy cartridge blades took a backseat, and at 1.00 a pack the DE was my fallback option when it came to shaving.

And last I read, P&G does actually manufacture some of them, but some are farmed out to Lord, Super Maxx, and one other company that escapes me ATM...

So why don't people in India and Africa use a straight razor? Expensive to buy but one razor could shave three or four generations of the same family. Nothing like starting off in life in your first job and being handed a free razor which takes care of you for the rest of your life. And you need not buy anything else for it as long as you are alive.

You're a very interesting man, Rob - and, as I've always maintained, a bright and articulate one.

Where'd you grow up?

In chronological order: All over NC, Hoboken NJ; Poughkeepsie NY; Miami Beach; Savannah, GA; Evry, France; Champigny-sur-Marne, France; Dronninglund, Danmark; Göteborg, Sweden; Colonial Heights, VA; and Fayetteville NC. When I left home I went to Austin, TX- that was when I really "grew up".

I moved so much when I was a kid, for different reason, but NC is always "home" to me. Basically while my mom and dad were busy doing their thing, they would pack me off to go live with another family member for months or years at a time. My dad's family was in Scandinavia, and my mother's was in France, so I spent about five years growing up in Europe. I miss it quite a bit some times, but I'm too damned American to live there permanently.

Rob, we have some things in common--me, born in Poland, raised in Israel, lived in Greece several years, now living in Canada.