TIL that a single zipper on a duffel bag adds $15 to the manufacturing cost

I was looking at bags online and found this breakdown from a factory in Vietnam. They said each zipper pull and track adds about $15 in materials and labor. So when you see a $50 bag with two zippers, half the cost is just the zippers. Does that make the cheap bags more impressive or the expensive ones a ripoff?

2 comments

2 Comments

garcia.casey6d ago

The cheap bags are honestly more impressive for making it work with one zipper.

walker.robert6d ago

I saw one of those $5 bags from a gas station once and the zipper was held together with a paperclip but it somehow lasted longer than my brand name one that broke in three months. @garcia.casey you're onto something with that observation. The cheap ones have like one simple zipper track and no extra fabric flaps to get caught, so the whole mechanism is just simpler. Meanwhile my expensive bag has this double zipper system and a rain flap that always jams up at the worst time. It's almost like the engineers for the cheap stuff understand that fewer moving parts means less stuff to break.