Modern Design Ripoff
I saw a very neatly designed magnetic spice rack the other day, made by Soho Spices in NYC. The steel spice jars have a glass lid so you can easily see the contents, and a sliding shaker area, so you can use some without opening it up. Nifty and very pretty, but wholly uninteresting.
No, what’s interesting about it is the range of prices for this thing.
Chiasso offers it, for $118 plus shipping.
Tubular carries it as well, but for $89.00 shipped.
Amazon also sells it, but for $75.00 shipped.
Raindogs has it too, for $65.00.
And finally, Chef Giant wins the price war at $59.99 with free shipping.
The further you get away from kitchen supply stores and into stores that sell things based on design, the more expensive this item gets for seemingly no reason. I feel like I’m playing a round of Mystery Price.
Even at it’s cheapest, you’re still paying $60 just to hold 12 spices, or $5 per spice.
Incidentally, for that exact same amount of money, you could head on over to Ikea and pick up a 3 pack of their magnetic spice jars that look nearly identical. 12 jars cost you 1/3 of the price, so you could buy 36 of them for the same cost as the Soho @ Chef Giant. Yes, they have a plastic lid instead of glass, yes you have to remove the lid instead of just shaking, but at what point do you draw a line for how much money you’re willing to waste on decorative spice racks?!
For what it’s worth, I contacted Chiasso and told them that their product was 200% more expensive than other online retailers. The woman I spoke to didn’t particularly appreciate that.