Interesting paper on the early years of DE razors and Gillette:
http://www.law.uchicago.edu/files/file/Picker paper.pdf
http://www.law.uchicago.edu/files/file/Picker paper.pdf
Draft Paper on the History of Razors and Blades
- Thread starter sirleanalot
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Very interesting indeed.
Phil
Phil
I'M ONLY ON PAGE 4 BUT IT'S SO INTERESTING THAT I'M TYPING THIS IN ALL CAPS!!!
Seriously... this is good stuff! Thanks!
Seriously... this is good stuff! Thanks!
Thanks for posting that - it is a hell of a good read!
Great little (huge) history lesson there! Much appreciated!
"King C. Gillette, the man and his wonderful shaving device" by Russell Adams is a fantastic read for anybody interested in this sort of information.
Fascinating read, thanks for this.
Thanks for posting. And I thought Gillette always gave away its razors to sell blades. If you want to see the auto strop being sharpened look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25-F9ZQp5Dg
I have only read a few pages but already disagree with the author and think he has gone so far off base the rest of the paper is probably irrelevant. Here are a few quotes from the early pages with my comments:
Well, it would be even dumber to base your strategy on the stupidity (sappiness) of your competition. And the strategy (make most of your money on repeat business of low-cost but high-margin product) seems sound -- at least it isn't contradicted by the above quote.
Maybe true (debatable: More than one company can make money in a market.) but King Gillette had a few of answers to that: patents, continued product improvement, difficulty of manufacture, and most important -- advertising. All strategies still in use today by a wide variety of companies.
Well THAT is nonsense because raising YOUR price for razors does not force your competition to do the same. Quite the opposite. It makes room for them to undercut you!
Anyway, Gillette offered many expensive razors so he could play the game BOTH ways. Just because ONE strategy works does not mean that another will NOT also work.
That's about where I stopped reading.
If the razors are actually being sold at a loss—given away for free—then a better strategy seems clear: let the other guy sell the razors at a loss while you sell only the profitable blades. You don’t have to lose money on the razors if some other poor sap is willing to do so.
Well, it would be even dumber to base your strategy on the stupidity (sappiness) of your competition. And the strategy (make most of your money on repeat business of low-cost but high-margin product) seems sound -- at least it isn't contradicted by the above quote.
[L]ow-prices for razors only make sense if customers are loyal or if the razor producer can block other firms from entering the blade market.
Maybe true (debatable: More than one company can make money in a market.) but King Gillette had a few of answers to that: patents, continued product improvement, difficulty of manufacture, and most important -- advertising. All strategies still in use today by a wide variety of companies.
f you want to create switching costs through the razor, the razor needs to have a high price, not a low one.
Well THAT is nonsense because raising YOUR price for razors does not force your competition to do the same. Quite the opposite. It makes room for them to undercut you!
Anyway, Gillette offered many expensive razors so he could play the game BOTH ways. Just because ONE strategy works does not mean that another will NOT also work.
That's about where I stopped reading.
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Thanks for the link. That draft needs some editing, but the main thrust of the argument is clear. It's an interesting read, and led me to skim McKibben's "Cutting Edge" too.
McKibben argues that John Joyce was the fiercest advocate of charging for razors as well as blades. According to his book, K.C. Gillette never really ran the company. After Joyce arrived with his crucial investment of seed money, he insisted on charging $5 for the entry-level razor sets and also insisted on a "no discounts" policy. That $5 was about a third of the price of a decent business suit, so Gillette certainly wasn't giving away the razors. Even without Joyce, McKibben says that the other directors wanted to charge $3 - but probably there would have been discounts from that price.
Joyce was fairly shrewd. I wonder if the $5 was a ploy to keep users locked into Gillette via the sunk cost fallacy? After I've paid a lot of money for this fancy new razor, I guess I had better use it. I won't bother to buy a cheaper GEM and try it, because switching would turn the cost of the Gillette into wasted money. That would probably work, but of course it also kept Gillette from going mass-market until WWI disrupted the model and put millions of discounted military sets into circulation.
All this gave me another idea: I added some historical notes to the first two tables at http://wiki.badgerandblade.com/index.php/US_Gillette_Dating_Information. Maybe this was a bad idea, and it just clutters up the table. But I like the idea of adding historical context around the various razors.
For example, I think it's interesting that Nickerson, who was Gillette employee #1 and the engineer behind the Old Type and New Improved, retired just a couple of years before the Kroma disaster came to a head and led to the Auto Strop merger. I also found it interesting that Gaisman, who was probably a better engineer than Nickerson, was at the helm for the development of the Sheraton and Senator, the first TTO razors. That chronology makes sense to me in terms of Gaisman's design sense: look at the Auto Strop vs the pre-merger Gillettes.
Finally, all this brought home to me that Gillette's life as a company really only ran from 1901 to 1930: after that the Auto Strop execs had taken over. The glory years were probably the decade from 1918-1927 when they were able to take advantage of the military sets to grow the blade market. One could also point to the post-1938 era, when the economy was better, and Gaisman had retired. Presumably by that point the scars from the patent fight and merger had healed over.
McKibben argues that John Joyce was the fiercest advocate of charging for razors as well as blades. According to his book, K.C. Gillette never really ran the company. After Joyce arrived with his crucial investment of seed money, he insisted on charging $5 for the entry-level razor sets and also insisted on a "no discounts" policy. That $5 was about a third of the price of a decent business suit, so Gillette certainly wasn't giving away the razors. Even without Joyce, McKibben says that the other directors wanted to charge $3 - but probably there would have been discounts from that price.
Joyce was fairly shrewd. I wonder if the $5 was a ploy to keep users locked into Gillette via the sunk cost fallacy? After I've paid a lot of money for this fancy new razor, I guess I had better use it. I won't bother to buy a cheaper GEM and try it, because switching would turn the cost of the Gillette into wasted money. That would probably work, but of course it also kept Gillette from going mass-market until WWI disrupted the model and put millions of discounted military sets into circulation.
All this gave me another idea: I added some historical notes to the first two tables at http://wiki.badgerandblade.com/index.php/US_Gillette_Dating_Information. Maybe this was a bad idea, and it just clutters up the table. But I like the idea of adding historical context around the various razors.
For example, I think it's interesting that Nickerson, who was Gillette employee #1 and the engineer behind the Old Type and New Improved, retired just a couple of years before the Kroma disaster came to a head and led to the Auto Strop merger. I also found it interesting that Gaisman, who was probably a better engineer than Nickerson, was at the helm for the development of the Sheraton and Senator, the first TTO razors. That chronology makes sense to me in terms of Gaisman's design sense: look at the Auto Strop vs the pre-merger Gillettes.
Finally, all this brought home to me that Gillette's life as a company really only ran from 1901 to 1930: after that the Auto Strop execs had taken over. The glory years were probably the decade from 1918-1927 when they were able to take advantage of the military sets to grow the blade market. One could also point to the post-1938 era, when the economy was better, and Gaisman had retired. Presumably by that point the scars from the patent fight and merger had healed over.
I wonder why Kampfe razor has a half blade loaded in the AD?
It is an interesting and worthwhile read because many "why" questions are answered as far as the progression of the hardware is concerned.
I have a new draft paper on the history of razors and blades that may be of interest to the razors community. I have been in touch with a couple of razors authors, one of whom suggested that I post a message here.
The paper is entitled "The Razors-and-Blades Myth(s)" and should be downloadable for free at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1676444
I am a professor at the University of Chicago Law School where I teach in the areas of intellectual property, antitrust and network industries and this paper fits within that research.
As always, I am eager for comments on the research, especially where I have made mistakes or missed prior relevant work.
Mod edit- removed personal contact info.
The paper is entitled "The Razors-and-Blades Myth(s)" and should be downloadable for free at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1676444
I am a professor at the University of Chicago Law School where I teach in the areas of intellectual property, antitrust and network industries and this paper fits within that research.
As always, I am eager for comments on the research, especially where I have made mistakes or missed prior relevant work.
Mod edit- removed personal contact info.
Last edited by a moderator:
I am a bit confused.
What multiblade razors was Gillette competing with in the 1920s?
And what of the change in blade design with the introduction of the New in the late 20s?
What multiblade razors was Gillette competing with in the 1920s?
And what of the change in blade design with the introduction of the New in the late 20s?
Thanks for the link. I believe we have some prior discussion at http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php?t=165023
I may have stumbled into the wrong term. By that I mean other firms selling multiple blades with the possibility of disposability. The Ever-ready and the Gem Junior are good examples.
Does that clarify?
No . . . those razors used Single-Edge blades and certainly were not disposable. Their design is based on a 1912 patent.
I don't believe multiple-blade razors were sold prior to the Gillette Trac-II, which was introduced in 1971.
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