Quote:
Originally Posted by Evil IX
$200 is not necessarily the magic number in the motorcycling industry . Cheap doesn't mean people will buy it. It depends how you market the product and who you are targeting.
This is part of the marketing and public relation (PR) side of things. Obviously Arai has a lot more riders wearing those helmets than HJC in MotoGP and also in WSBK. People might not know those riders, but each rider has their own graphics and Aldo Drudi (Drudi Performance) created more graphic designs for Arai than HJC. Result is Arai has more style to choose from, so when riders are looking into helmets arai has more selections.
The marketing aspect side of things is that I believe HJC pricing is one of their problems. Whene you set a price for a product you can't set it too low or too high. The reason is because many competitor's product are priced between $400-$800 and having the same product priced between $100 - $300 gives consumers a perception that the product is "cheap" or "poor quality"
Helmets are designed to protect your head from a collision. So the question is why would you rather spend more on a helmet? HJC hadn't really ask themselves that question before they pricd their own products. I am not saying HJC sucks, they are still arprofitable in other areas and people still do buy their helmets but in comparison, I think majority would rather buy an arai than HJC.
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Yea man I hear you man, I think you misunderstood what I meant though.
I meant to say the $200 range is the magic number for people looking for entry level helmets specifically. I should have made it clearer.
Take AGV for example, for some reason we sell a lot more K3's ($189) than K4's ($259), and both are considered entry level helmets in AGV line. I'd say the ratio of k3 to k4 sold is 4:1 and most of the folks buying them seem to be in the market for their first helmet.
A lot of people even chose the K3 over the K4 after knowing the shell construction of the K3 is plastic over the fiberglass K4 shell, it doesn't bother them, they only look at the pricing.
HJC's pricing actually is in line with a lot of its competitors, Ern
The $400 dollar helmets you were most likely making reference to in the Arai/Shoei line are not competitors to the HJC's CL16/IS16.
I'm certain HJC set the price of their product in conjunction with the material construction of the helmet. The CL16/IS15 helmet shells are made out of plastic. The least expensive Shoei and Arai are already made out of a matrix of fiberglass and organic fibers.
You would have to look into mid level HJC's before you'd start finding fiberglass construction. Even looking at the most expensive HJC helmet, it's only made out of a fiberglass/carbon combination (similar to what you'd find in AGV's Grid). The HJC line just ends there, they don't even offer a helmet made with a full carbon shell like what you would find in the GP-Tech and Corsair V.
HJC's direct competitors would be something like Bell and Scorpion man, which if you compare their pricing, its pretty on par.
I don't think its the fact HJC doesn't want to price their helmets higher but it's more that they can't, solely due to the materials the helmet is constructed out of, quality is debatable. It's not fair to compare HJC to companies like Arai or Shoei though because they're not even in the same league, despite all 3 being helmet giants