When I was in high school, my friends and I went to a pizza place after school nearly every day. In addition to a slice of pizza, we would each buy a soda. The place offered free refills (this was back when not all places did this), and we thought it was really cool. However, I used to wonder why they would do this. Wouldn't it be more profitable to them if they forced us to buy a second drink?
Four years later, I began working in a restaurant and learned that more often than not, the cups we gave out for soda cost more than the syrup that went in the drink. The restaurant offered us free food on days we worked, but we couldn't get drinks for free unless we brought our own cups.
This was shocking to me and put free refills into a whole new perspective. We could sell the soda for more than it cost to make, but no one would buy a soda if we tried to sell it for more than the cup cost. It would cost us less to allow customers to refill the same cup for free than it would be to give or even sell them another cup because it would cost the business a lot to replace each cup.
Soda cups aren't the only things that have a high mark up price, and they're not the only products people were surprised to find had a high mark up. Redditors know of lots of products that they were surprised to find out has a high mark up and are ready to share.
It all started when Redditor petrastales asked:
"What product unbeknownst to most people has the highest mark up?"
Equality Doesn't Exist
"Back in the early 2000’s I was managing a restaurant - garlic bread was selling for 3.95 and cost 0.07 to make. Not all food items are equal when it comes to margins!"
– leyland_gaunt
"I came here specifically to mention pizza. The profit margins on pizza are nuts, you have to suck at making it to not stay open."
– DreadedChalupacabra
"Yeah, it drives me nuts when you can request add-ons, but it's like $3 for a few pieces of camembert, or $2 for some chopped tomato, when it probably cost $5 for an entire 1kg bag of tomatoes."
– Writerhowell
How Cheesy
"Yeah and like 1.50 of that pizza was the cheese."
"Cheese is the most expensive part of a pizza assuming youre not doing some weird specialty stuff."
– Doomstik
"Can confirm. Worked at a pizza place. An incompetent employee was supposed to fluff a box of cheese but dropped it on the ground by accident. the owner was there. I swear I saw him shed a tear because that box was $120 of pure uncut shredded mozzarella and that was supposed to become like $1,000 in pizzas."
– PM_Sexy_Catgirls_Meo
That's Nuts!
"Yeah I worked at a place that did charcuterie, I apologized to the chef for munching out on the fancy olives all night. He said he didn't give a damn, as long as it kept my hands off the roasted cashews. Big jar of olives was like 15 bucks, the equivalent of cashews was like 200 bucks."
– hudson27
Bamboozled
"Reminds me of the never-ending pasta at Olive Garden. Pasta is dirt cheap and incredibly filling. The chances of you eating enough that it's actually a good deal for you is very slim."
– IBJON
"When I was working at a chain pizza restaurant, the storage manager wanted to get pasta on the menu, because of the profit margins. It's crazy because it cost us $2.10 to make a 17 inch pizza, and we sold them for $14."
– fukreddit73264
Not Worth It
"Flavored seltzers at a brewery. The beer costs 10x as much to make, but they charge almost the same at the tap."
– LocoCracka
"I have a buddy who made seltzers at a brewery in the Bay Area. Some malt liquor, very little flavoring, and a ton of soda water."
"Couldn’t make a cheaper adult beverage if you tried."
– Ikarus_Zer0
Ma, I Can't See!
"Glasses."
"Luxottica owns most major eye wear stores, costs them a few dollars to make and you pay hundreds for them."
– godnrop
"My cousin taught English in China after college in the early 2000s, apparently they had machines in malls where you could look into a pair of holes, do a vision test, get a prescription, and have a pair of glasses automatically ground for you in like 2 minutes for about $5, and the only reason we don't have that in the US is regulations."
"I travel to China frequently for work. I just take the USA prescription for family and friends and they have them made in about an hour or less. Family and friends give me an idea of frames they like and they pop the prescription lenses in. I pay about USD40 for the top-grade lens material that is antifog and anti-scratch."
– i3f8j
"I don’t really object to paying $50 for an eye exam, I object to paying $300 for a pair of frames. There’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to take the prescription the optometrist gives you, enter the numbers into the machine, and get the same $5 glasses."
– river4823
Message Received
"Back in the day, text messaging."
– alien109
"That's why I left T-Mobile in 2005. They were charging me for incoming texts but offered no way for me to block them. So basically, someone else had control of my bill."
– CGYOMH
"I remember being young, spending the $20 I worked so hard for so I could get minutes, only for a friend with unlimited minutes to spam me with a few texts and take it all away. What an upsetting time."
– Boopcheese
Ice Ice Baby
"Soft drinks in pubs. Especially the ones from “the tap”. Costs pennies and they charge £3 for a pint of it. Probably the biggest earner in a pub."
– lucky_1979
"Especially when they just cram a glass with ice and then lightly moisten it with the actual drink you ordered."
– jamesmowry
"My work just came out with a policy that we need to completely fill the glass with ice because it "keeps the drink colder for longer".. eyeroll."
– metalbridgebuilder
"The nuts and bolts section at your local big box hardware store is the highest markup isle. 500% or more. If you need more than a few bolts, go shopping at a proper hardware supplier."
– SatanLifeProTips
"Whenever I go through one of these aisles and look at the price for a single bolt or screw, I look at the overall assortment and think: There must be tens of thousands of dollars just for the shelf-price of fasteners I see right here in this aisle alone."
"The markup is crazy, but why do I want to buy a box of 100 screws if I only need two?"
– lemming_follower
Second To One
"The second-cheapest bottle of wine on the menu."
– slocki
"In order to not look cheap, many people will buy the 2nd cheapest item on the menu."
– AprilsMostAmazing
"Wine in restaurants in general. The markup on wine is wild. My boss used to get whatever was “on sale” from the distributor and usually pay $3-4 a bottle and sell it at $10 a glass."
– she_shoots
Pour Some Sugar On Me
"Candy floss / cotton candy. £4.99 for legitimately 10p worth of sugar."
– Tylervdub
"I used to work food service at an amusement park for a summer job."
"A manager told us that the cost of making a bag of cotton candy, including ingredients, labor, etc., was 19 cents...we sold it for $3."
– etm105
Look, Don't Drive
"Those button batteries in store."
"They know you need one asap cause your car won’t unlock so you are stuck."
"Wait 1 day and you can get a dozen from Amazon for same price."
– kindrudekid
Medical Supplies
"As a Diabetic I'm pretty sure it's Insulin."
– PraiseThePun81
"Can’t believe I had to scroll so far to find this."
"I spend over $13k annually on ‘good’ insurance that doesn’t cover half of the things I need as a diabetic. I spend half that again on the insulin and supplies. It’s a racket."
– Nosce_Temet
H2O
"Water."
– ganic-Lie4759
"Bottled water is so highly marked up as to qualify as a scam."
"At no extra cost aside from the bottle (I don’t have a water meter) my water is completely free. It tastes as good or better than bottled."
– 6033624
I didn't know about any of this!
I can hear my wallet crying.
