Degutis Insights

When I was getting my haircut I overheard the discussion in the chair next to me. The person was lamenting about a night out with some friends. She and three of her friends went out for drinks and appetizers. The bill ended up being $200 because the Long Island Ice Tea they were drinking were $10 a piece.

This got me to thinking about a few other expensive things in small quantities.

The obvious example is a small, expensive bottle of perfume such as Chanel No. 5. But there are a few less obvious items that are sold in small quantities at prices higher than we’d imagine.

I had seen a few stories about how expensive printer ink is when you measure it by the gallon, including this one by David Pogue of the NY Times and this one by the Nashua Telegraph, which put it somewhere between $3,000 and $4,300 per gallon.

Then there’s the recent story about how expensive text messaging is (using AT&T’s rates for the iPhone) when you convert those tiny little messages (160 characters) to megabytes: $1,300 per megabyte. If we had to pay for email by the megabyte, we’d be paying tens of thousands of dollars a month.

It has become obvious to me that THE money is in selling things in small quantities. So, starting tomorrow I will have for sale a window cleaning solutions that is so special, rare and effective that it will available at the introductory cost of $49.95 per, ummm, I’m not exactly sure of the actual quantity per container until I get back from the store, but we’re talking only ounces here. Get those credit cards ready.

- Al Degutis