Some great pricing moves by Gillette

Discussion in 'Cartridge Razors' started by engrsaks, Oct 1, 2017.

  1. engrsaks

    engrsaks Well-Known Member

    A pack of 4 carts of Mach-3 standard = CAD 12.9
    A pack of 4 carts of Mach-3 turbo = CAD 17.9
    A pack 3 fusion disposables (branded as Sensor 5) = CAD 8.9

    The new mach-3 is certainly a huge improvement over the previous one in terms of smooth shave and mileage. Feels like fusion proglide with three blades only.

    Sensor-5 is a very nice way to obtain fusion carts (Six for CAD 18) and they have good mileage along with smoothness.

    If Gillette keeps it up, I certainly won't be looking anywhere else. :)
     
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  2. PLANofMAN

    PLANofMAN Eccentric Razor Collector Staff Member

    Moderator Article Team
    As long as I can buy a 100 Astra SP's for $10 or thereabouts, I won't be looking either.

    Now if Gillette would just bring back the pre-lube strip Trac II cartridges at a reasonable price...
     
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  3. Eeyore

    Eeyore Well-Known Member

    Yes! My stock is depleting rapidly.
     
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  4. Demidog

    Demidog Well-Known Member

    What's wrong with the lube strip? I used Trac II cartridges before switching to DE razors and my only complaints were that they went dull after one shave and that they always nicked me when I went against the grain.
     
  5. PLANofMAN

    PLANofMAN Eccentric Razor Collector Staff Member

    Moderator Article Team
    Nothing is wrong with the lube strip itself, per se, but the blades were higher quality in the first iteration of the Trac II. The Trac II adjustable cartridges were better too.

    There is some evidence that every time Gillette comes out with a new cartridge, they subtly reengineer the old version cartridges to not shave as well as the newest version. I remember a thread about early vs later Mach 3 cartridges being compared, and the blade angle was changed by a few degrees.
     
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  6. Eeyore

    Eeyore Well-Known Member

    Everything is wrong with the slime strip! I hated it already the day it was introduced! The only good thing about it is that it made me switch to Wilkinson Sword carts.
     
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  7. Jim99

    Jim99 Gold Water Shaver

    Were those the lube strips that went gooey after the first shave and were virtually gone by the fourth shave? If so, I hated them.
     
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  8. Sabre

    Sabre Well-Known Member

    I would imagine it's more to do with moving the plant machinery from Berlin or Boston to Shanghai and Lodz, or wherever.
     
  9. PLANofMAN

    PLANofMAN Eccentric Razor Collector Staff Member

    Moderator Article Team
    That's a possibility. Never ascribe to malice aforethought what can be ascribed to human stupidity, or something like that.
     
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  10. richgem

    richgem suffering from chronic clicker hand cramps

    :happy088:
    I believe you were looking for Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
     
    Last edited: Oct 8, 2017
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  11. Eeyore

    Eeyore Well-Known Member

    I don't know about Shanghai, but there is no reason why the razor blade quality in Lodz should be less than in Berlin or Boston.
     
  12. Jerry-built Hustler

    Jerry-built Hustler Well-Known Member

    This rumor has been floating around for well over a decade. I believe it is a myth supported by confirmation bias, grounded in anti-corporate, conspiracy-theorist thinking. No one has ever offered any solid evidence of intentionally degraded blades. The idea also runs counter to any common-sense concept of business and sales. Gillette would not make products if they didn't sell in numbers sufficient to warrant continued production. Likewise, if a product sells well, it is in Gillette's interest to continue making it. Even if the heads at Gillette were insane enough to try to sabotage their own sales in some misguided attempt to turn customers onto newer products, they obviously weren't successful. The fact that the Trac II continues to hang on Target shelves 45 years after its introduction is evidence of that.
     
    Last edited: Jan 24, 2018
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  13. Sabre

    Sabre Well-Known Member

    The answer is simple, purchase NOS Trac II or Atra carts from eBay from the 70's or 80's, compare with NOS Russian Slaloms or something similar from the noughties. Then buy the latest Gillette product. They probably will feel the same. I might give it ago, as I have all of the above.
     
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  14. Bookworm

    Bookworm Well-Known Member

    Except for the fact that Gillette did exactly this back in the 80's. They ceased sale and manufacture of razors and blades upon which they were _still making a profit_. That is, DE's. Automated equipment that was fully amortized, at that - so you can't blame labour costs. So, the concept that they might repeat that exact same thing in order to try to focus strictly on their newest, highest profit items, isn't unreasonable.
     
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  15. Jerry-built Hustler

    Jerry-built Hustler Well-Known Member

    First up, I'm talking about blades/cartridges only, not razors/handles. Gillette's history of discontinuing older-model razors and handles is well documented. However, handles have always been loss leaders for the company, a means of creating demand for the blades, the repeat sales for which is where the company makes its money. Discontinuing handles may show an unwillingness by Gillette to generate new demand for previous models. Continuing to produce blades/cartridges shows an unwillingness by Gillette to turn its back on sales generated by existing demand. Those are two different things.

    Second, Gillette still makes DE blades. Most of them are marketed in countries other than the US, but up until at least last decade, there was still some version of Gillette DE blades commonly available in US drug stores. I'll admit I haven't looked in a while, so it's possible that has changed. However, The Art of Shaving, which is owned by P&G - parent company of Gillette - sells Gillette DE blades on their website, so there is still some form of US distribution of the product.

    Even if Gillette did discontinue production of DE blades entirely (which never happened), the theory mentioned by PlanOfMan isn't one of discontinuation of an old-but-still-profitable product: it's of Gillette deliberately making their prior cartridge models shave worse in order to affect consumer perception of the superiority of their newest model. Those are two completely different concepts. One makes sense. The other is crazy talk.
     
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  16. Bookworm

    Bookworm Well-Known Member

    By the 1980's, I believe Gillette had abandoned the loss leader razor handle theory - they were given as promotions (Mine was included with a can of cigarette tobacco bought by my grandfather), or just sold outright and were using cheaper components. Their last DE razors were the Knack variants (G-2000, etc), which are all plastic except for the head and turning ring.

    As for production of blades? No, they didn't make them in the US. American Safety Razor continued to make them, yes. In fact, in some variation, I believe they still do - but it's completely unrelated to Gillette. Gillette completely ceased manufacture of the blades in the US. The AoS blades, I suspect, are made in Russia and imported in.

    Just looked at Walgreens - https://www.walgreens.com/store/c/gillette-double-edge-platinum-plus-blades/ID=prod6322836-product

    Made in Brazil. They also weren't available just a few years ago. I struggled to get blades in the late 90's and through the 2000's. Mostly it was 'dollar store' Personna and similar. Schick until they stopped production.

    My point is that they _completely_ dropped sales of blades in the US - despite the fact that there were generations of people still with the razors. I suspect it was a marketing decision by someone my age (mid to late 40's), who left college, went to work for Gillette, and convinced enough people that they needed to try to make certain that people didn't have an option besides the disposables, rather than continue to make a guaranteed, even if small, profit.
     
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  17. Jerry-built Hustler

    Jerry-built Hustler Well-Known Member

    My experience was different. I'll grant that I didn't start DE shaving until 2005, but every Target and Walgreen's I went to at the time had packs of Gillette Inoxydable DE blades shoved off to the side of the Mach3s and Sensors, hanging with the Trac IIs and Atras. I think they were made in Russia, but since when is outsourcing of production a sign of stopping sales? If they're in front of me, they're being sold. If Gillette's name is on the pack, they're getting the markup, regardless of who made them, or where.

    All of this is beside the point, though. Gillette's (alleged) ceasing of DE sales is not evidence of sinister intent to degrade product quality in an effort to dupe customers. If anything, it's the opposite, since it demonstrates that when Gillette wants to stop selling a product, they stop selling it. Even viewing your idea in the most favorable light, it amounts to nothing more than contorted, theoretical support for the idea that Gillette degrading their products is not a complete impossibility. That's how conspiracy theories continue to thrive: any crackpot idea has merit, as long as you can't prove it could never conceivably happen, lack of evidence or common sense be damned.
     
  18. Bookworm

    Bookworm Well-Known Member

    I started DE shaving in about 1986 (with departures to try the Trac II, disposables, electrics, etc). It got pretty bad for a while there.

    My point is that you can't claim that they won't stop producing and/or selling a previous product because they can continue to make a profit. If that were the case, they wouldn't have stopped manufacturing blades in the US at all, as there was still a continued profit - just not an enormous one. No crackpot theories, no conspiracy theories, nothing like that. Just an awareness that companies are made up of people that can, and will, behave illogically. They simply made a decision at one point to abandon product lines, and they could do it again. (Possibly more than once, but I don't know that their scalpel and specialty blade lines were really profitable)
     
  19. Jerry-built Hustler

    Jerry-built Hustler Well-Known Member

    I'll keep repeating this: the "crackpot idea" that has been floating around online shaving forums for more than a decade, and that I am arguing against in this thread, is not that Gillette might stop producing a product. It's that they actually engage in the practice of degrading the quality of the products they continue to produce. Please explain how Gillette's decision to discontinue DE sales in the '80s is evidence that they currently, actually, deliberately degrade the quality of older-model products they continue to sell. What's the link? And for that matter, do you believe they engage in the practice?
     
  20. Jerry-built Hustler

    Jerry-built Hustler Well-Known Member

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