Just being curious. How much money actually goes into a racket? (Materials, paint, grommet, handle wood etc) Oh and in this case it would be a high end racket like VT ZF ii, tk9000, adipower pro, etc
The most expensive part of a high end racket (VTZF-2 for example) is the cost of carbon fiber, and the machine operating costs as well as labor. Carbon Fiber should costs around $30-$50 depending on whether you have a 2U, 3U, 4U or 5U etc. the lighter your racket, the less dense the carbon. Also depends on whether your racket has more fancier embedded materials such as Ti, Nanotube, AerMet, Tungsten, PEF. Etc.. But keep in mind, if a racket says it is made of Carbon Nanotubes, for example NanoRay/NanoSpeed series, ONLY about 1%-2% of the entire racket is actually Carbon Nanotubes since Nanotubes are very expensive to get. So the costs of these "extra" materials or technology is negligible. Nest we have the machine operating costs. As the racket needs to be baked and cooled to mold the frame and harden the shaft, the operating costs and electricity costs may vary by country and city... Labor costs may also vary depending on local government income regulations. Paint work is part of the labor cost, and may vary. This is because racket does not use too much of automotive paint, and most of them are bulk batched in the spray painting work. The artwork on a racket from these recently models are MOST if not all just DECAL STICKERS, which may or may not have a clear coat to protect these decals from peeling. I AM LOOKING AT YOU VOLTRIC Z FORCE (1st gen) lol, my Z Force stickers started to peel and "chip" within just few weeks due to lack of the clear coat. These stickers should cost few cents per racket, and adding the labor fees for sticking them in the same location as the design template. Wooden handles on rackets are almost negligible as well. Most wooden racket handles are made of cheap pinewood. These handles shout cost $1-$3 each. Carbon handles on rackets, such as some of the Gosen rackets, costs slightly higher since it is carbon fiber. But should not cost that much as only the inner "tube" structure of the handle is carbon, and the outer material is polycarbonate plastic fused with the carbon inner tube. The racket case is about $5 to $8. I would say cases finished in canvas material such as the ArcSaber cases are cheaper, compared to cases finished in vinyl material such as the Voltric cases. Those JP Yonex or other brand rackets that comes with soft racket cases are cheaper to make, about $2-$3 each. And of course, THE MOST EXPENSIVE PART OF THE RACKET from a LARGE compay, such as Yonex, Gosen, Victor, Mizuno etc. is the RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT. I cannot say how much R&D will cost, but depends on the racket. If the racket is a completely new ORIGINAL model that is nor a repainted version of an old model, it would costs more. And example would be the Voltric 80, which introduced many new material into its build, such as Neoprene, Tungsten etc.. But of course, manufacturers can make back all of the R&D the more racket it sells. So there is no way for me to add this cost into the racket manufacturing costs... A high end racket that sells for $200, expect the manufacture of materials to be just under $100.
High End Racket Bill of Materials The most expensive part of a high end racket (VTZF-2 for example) is the cost of carbon fiber, and the machine operating costs as well as labor. Carbon Fiber should costs around $30-$50 depending on whether you have a 2U, 3U, 4U or 5U etc. the lighter your racket, the less dense the carbon. Also depends on whether your racket has more fancier embedded materials such as Ti, Nanotube, AerMet, Tungsten, PEF. Etc.. But keep in mind, if a racket says it is made of Carbon Nanotubes, for example NanoRay/NanoSpeed series, ONLY about 1%-2% of the entire racket is actually Carbon Nanotubes since Nanotubes are very expensive to get. So the costs of these "extra" materials or technology is negligible. Nest we have the machine operating costs. As the racket needs to be baked and cooled to mold the frame and harden the shaft, the operating costs and electricity costs may vary by country and city... Labor costs may also vary depending on local government income regulations. Paint work is part of the labor cost, and may vary. This is because racket does not use too much of automotive paint, and most of them are bulk batched in the spray painting work. The artwork on a racket from these recently models are MOST if not all just DECAL STICKERS, which may or may not have a clear coat to protect these decals from peeling. I AM LOOKING AT YOU VOLTRIC Z FORCE (1st gen) lol, my Z Force stickers started to peel and "chip" within just few weeks due to lack of the clear coat. These stickers should cost few cents per racket, and adding the labor fees for sticking them in the same location as the design template. Wooden handles on rackets are almost negligible as well. Most wooden racket handles are made of cheap pinewood. These handles shout cost $1-$3 each. Carbon handles on rackets, such as some of the Gosen rackets, costs slightly higher since it is carbon fiber. But should not cost that much as only the inner "tube" structure of the handle is carbon, and the outer material is polycarbonate plastic fused with the carbon inner tube. The racket case is about $5 to $8. I would say cases finished in canvas material such as the ArcSaber cases are cheaper, compared to cases finished in vinyl material such as the Voltric cases. Those JP Yonex or other brand rackets that comes with soft racket cases are cheaper to make, about $2-$3 each. And of course, THE MOST EXPENSIVE PART OF THE RACKET from a LARGE compay, such as Yonex, Gosen, Victor, Mizuno etc. is the RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT. I cannot say how much R&D will cost, but depends on the racket. If the racket is a completely new ORIGINAL model that is nor a repainted version of an old model, it would costs more. And example would be the Voltric 80, which introduced many new material into its build, such as Neoprene, Tungsten etc.. But of course, manufacturers can make back all of the R&D the more racket it sells. So there is no way for me to add this cost into the racket manufacturing costs... A high end racket that sells for $200, expect the manufacture of materials to be just under $100.
Most expensive part of what you pay retail for the racket is not R&D, but easily a big portion of it is in player endorsements and tournament sponsorship money. And a high end racket in large quantities probably costs around $60-80 to make. This has been the number that has been thrown around in past discussions.
it also depends a lot on labor costs. a high end racket made in Japan using Japanese labor will cost more than the exact same material and process but done in China.
Lol forgot to mention the sponsorship and advertisement as a large sum of wrist you pay for when you buy a high end racket, ESPECIALLY a Yonex or Victor racket Though not so much sponsorship costs for Gosen or Mizuno high end rackets As for Bill of Materials for a high end racket, my original post hold true
Yes that's why my under $100 is for Japan made Yonex Bill of Materials.. Even so, Japan's labor is probably one of the lower labor costs among 1st world development countries Labor costs in Canada and US are much higher than in Japan
So very wrong. You're not even close. There's not even 15 bucks worth of carbon in each racket, and the difference in cost between a super high end racket's materials and an 'ordinary' rackets materials is at the most, and extra $5-7. AND the prices go DOWN the more you make. I know exactly how much rackets cost to make, but only when you order 250-1000 of them. Make TENS OF THOUSANDS of them and even my quotes start to look ludicrously high. Whats the point of this enquiry anyway?
lolz, MaK is right, its not around half what of you pay, thats way too high. Though its still pretty good of what we pay for them. Considering other stuff such as electronics that we pay many many times more then what it costs to make. Such as google Glass (~75$, we pay $1500), iPhone (~$100, we pay ~$1000 , here in Australia, outright, without contract), etc So anyway, its still such a steal by what we pay for badminton racquets
So much inaccurate information and speculation in this thread :\ Making a Voltric Z-Force II does not cost 15$, nor does it cost 100$. In reality, no one knows how much it costs except the guys over at Yonex headquarters. And unless they publish a very detailed report of rackets' costs, there is no point even trying to think or talk about it. There are A LOT of things that add up to make the cost of a racket and even if we were to discuss about it for 10 years, we'd never get even a good approximation of what the real figure is in dollars.
If you have made rackets, liaised with manufacturers, and have quotes from them, I reckon Yan you'd be in a pretty reasonable position to speculate what a racket costs to make In terms of Yonex though, we don't know what their overheads and marketing costs are, so that's the bit we can't really speculate on. I read somewhere once though that with Oakley sunglasses, the marketing is a larger portion of their cost price than the actual sunglass is.....which I find quite bizarre. Probably makes them a marketing company that just so happens to sell sunglasses, rather than a sunglass company that has to do marketing.
Of course I'm sure you have a good idea of material costs and the cost to make a specific non branded racket in China factories, but that just does not compare to the reality of Yonex/Victor/Li-Ning/etc racket materials, production, distribution, R&D, marketing, etc.
Well, to be fair, we're only concerned with the actual cost (labour and materials) of making a racket en masse by the OEM factory... so marketing, R&D, overhead, distribution etc is besides the point. And Yonex and Victor with their large buying power can probably get them manufactured much cheaper per racket than Maklike or Dinkalot can.
