Cost per Ounce

[Razor]

I am neither rich or have a lot of resources.-I do backpack a lot ( about 200+/- nights a year) I buy the most functional gear I can get for the money. I am all for formulas and ratios but it comes down to what you can use and what fits your kit and your style. I can't imagine money getting in the way of my choice . And then again -----------

[JAK]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EVB7xtqJHY

[MuddyWaters]

Cost/ounce saved is only important in determining where to spend limited money to get the lightest pack.

Over the long term, your money to spend on hiking gear probably is not limited.

Over the short term, like preparing for specific hike, it may be.

[Wick'dWarm'n'Dry]

I don't get the logic of those price per ounce numbers. They seem completely meaningless. Price per ounce saved would be another matter.

+1 That's what I was going to suggest.

[Wick'dWarm'n'Dry]

A better way to analyze the cost of weight savings is to show how much it cost to save the oz setting one item as the bench mark.
In this case the scout would be the starting point.

Saving oz is a good thing. It is just a matter of how much you are willing to spend to save an oz. It is not just how much an item cost per oz.

+1 I like G-FOURce's suggestion of using an average cost per oz. as a benchmark.

[aficion]

Keystone Ice currently has the lowest cost per ounce of alcohol in a canned brewed product. Carrying a 30 pack into a shelter, while not exactly UL, is a good way to make friends for life. And if no one is there ... a zero is n order.

[FlyPaper]

The Six Moon Designs "skyscape" tent is available in three flavors : Polyurathane coated nlyon, Sil nylon and Cuben fiber. This allows a direct comparison of the cost per ounce of each of these fabrics, assuming the labor and profit margin of each version of the tent is about the same.

Scout - Poly coated nylon - $125.00, 34 oz = $3.68/oz
Trekker - Sil nylon - $225.00, 24 oz = $9.38/oz
X - Cuben fiber - $550.00, 15 oz = $36.69/oz

The price jump from poly to sil is a good price/oz trade off, but wow, going from sil to cuben to save 9 oz is a stiff price to pay!

I'm not one to shy away from complexity, but gear weight analysis is pretty complex.

As some have pointed out, the more useful number is cost per ounce saved. So in the above example, Sil Nylon
saves 10 ounces and cost $100, which is a $10 per ounce of weight saved. Cuben fiber, when compared to the poly coated nylon
saves 19 ounces and cost $425, which is a $22.37 per ounce of weight saved. But when measuring weight saved, you have to measure
against the next best option. So really, for Cuben fiber, it saves 9 ounces over the sil nylon and cost $325. That is a $36.11 per ounce
of weight saved. And that's only against the next best option known. What if there is another tent for $175 that could be a contender.

And what makes it more complicated, is you already own something. If I own a scout tent, I can't sell it as a new tent. Thus I have
a tent that I paid $125 for that I might could sell for $25. Which means it is really $525 more for the cuben fiber tent. Plus, I have to
pay sales tax, drive to the store, and go through the hassle of selling my old tent. Or if I don't sell my old tent, I now have my house
cluttered with two tents instead of one. And rarely do we have two tents that we know for certain that weight is the only important
point of comparison. The OP presented a hypothetical example, neatly laid out, for comparison only. In real life, we do not have perfect
knowledge. We have to research, which takes time. Time which could be used for something else, such as hiking.
If we're comparing a $125 with a cuben fiber tent, how do we know there is not another tent almost as good as
the cuben fiber tent that costs $200 instead of $550? You can't
just research the item you're thinking about buying, you have to evaluate other options as well.

For some, this is part of the joy of hiking. For me, I just carry some extra weight and save my money.

[quasarr]

Everyone is assuming the prices are based on equal "labor and profit margin." But I think that isn't the case! There's a good chance that the manufacturer has set the prices for other reasons. For example, the price of the poly-nylon might be inflated to make the sil-nylon look like a better deal. Common technique in price setting is to have two similar options, with one being slightly better. That way you can steer the customer towards making the choice that will earn you the most money

[Tuckahoe]

I'm not being snarky, but doesn't it matter what the manufacturer's reasons for pricing are? Wouldn't that only matter when thinking about DIY gear? You're buying retail and the price is the price regardless how it's arrived at. Or am I missing something?

[Abela]

There have been a whole lot of folks who have had a whole lot to say about the "Cost per Gram" and "Cost per Ounce" that I use in my spreadsheets for the lightest weight articles/comparisons that I have done (solo & 2p) and for the most part, the vast majority of what folks have had to say are right-on. That being, this type of a "Cost Per Weight" are for the most part totally unrealistic and utterly useless. At this point, I keep them in there just because it makes me giggle when I see them, as a CpW can be helpful in only a couple of very small situations.

All that said, I personally do not feel that a decision to buy a shelter should be made on the CpW.

I also do not feel that a weekend hiker should buy cuben fiber shelters - I think, from a Usage/Cost/Performance (UCP) factor, that a CF shelter really only has any real merit if you tend to average 50+ nights a year out on the trail in a situation where a shelter is needed.

The reasoning behind this is that the few extra ounces (for a non-cf shelter) being carried by a hiker that does not do big miles throughout the year (which is where Weight Per Distance [WpD] starts to factor into) does not warrant a higher UCP.

That is: if you are going to use a shelter/tarp for 10 nights a year and it costs you 30 bucks for that shelter, that is a good UCP. If you are going to use a shelter/tarp for 10 nights a year and it costs you 130 bucks (because it is CF) for the shelter, that is a very poor/bad UCP.

On the other hand: if you are going to use a shelter/tarp for 60 nights a year and it costs you 30 bucks for that shelter, it remains a good UCP. If you are going to use a shelter/tarp for 60 nights a year and it costs you 130 bucks (because it is CF) for the shelter, that allows it to become a great UCP.

We should also factor in our decisions of buying a shelter this insight:

The a non-cf product goes from being a "good UCP" to a "really great UCP" -- in other words, no difference - and some would even say it goes from being a "good" to being a "poor", because of the additional WpD factor.

But when you take that 130 dollar shelter and see it go from being a "poor" UCP to being a "good" UCP, it can start to make the cost of the shelter a better solution. Additionally, the WpD for the shelter becomes a much greater value for the more active hiker.



So anyway, yeah, while I think the whole CpW is an interesting aspect to look at, it really does not tell us much beyond who in the cottage industry is tending to offer their gear at a lower profit margin. The real numbers to be looked at in the shelter decision process is the UCP and WpD. At least, that is what I have been thinking the last couple of years.