How much do Ray-Bans cost to make?

There are several factors to explore, first the cost of manufacturing the glasses, the wholesale cost offered to Ray-Ban retailers, the quality of Ray-Ban and if the retail cost of Ray-Bans are too high.

Cost of Making Cheap Chinese Sunglasses

For the very low end, if you had ordered a pair of no name brand wholesale frames from China, like a replica of a wayfarer, depending on quantity, it'll be roughly $2 per pair without the lenses. But they are of terrible quality compared to a Ray-Ban where the quality of material is much higher. So you might consider that a Ray-Ban costs atleast two or three times the cost to make.

Also to mention, majority of Ray-Bans are made in Italy, but quite a few of the sunglasses and basically all the eyeglasses are made in Ray-Bans factory in China. These factories are held to a much higher standard.

Wholesale Price Offered to Retailers

The cost offered to Ray-Ban retailers is usually half of the retail price, so if a Ray-Ban costs $150 retail price, the retailer paid about $75 for them. This is normal for basically everything sold in stores.

That's why I always say a Ray-Ban is most likely a fake if it's lower than half of the retail price. Because then, the seller is taking a loss and it would make no business sense.

So How Much Do Ray-Bans Cost to Make?

I've heard the markup is about 20 times, which sounds kind of right. 

Using $150 as an example, 150÷20=7.5, with this theory, it may cost $7.50 per frame

With the lenses, not sure if that $7.50 includes the lenses. But the lenses would be slightly less to make than the frame, the lenses may cost about $1-$4 to make, Plastic/Polycarbonate lenses would be the lowest price to produce and Glass lenses a bit more. Then also if it's polarized, a little more, I've heard once the difference was only like $0.17, but that I'm not 100% sure on.

My educated guess is around $5-$12 for sunglasses and $4-$8 for eyeglasses.

So it doesn't cost that much to make, but the reasons are that they produce in mass quantities, like anything, if you order in mass, it'll cost less. So yes, it is alot if you simply think that's the price to make, so why is the retail price so high? This brings us to the next point.

So How is this Justified?

So before you start complaining, you need to think about what actually goes into all this.

1. It's a name brand, your always gonna pay more for a name brand anyway.

2. Cost to manufacture all these frames.

3. Cost of factory workers. 

4. Cost of shipping to all the Ray-Ban warehouses in the world.

5. Cost of warehousing all that product.

6. Cost of warehouse employees who ship to the retailers.

7. Cost of customer service staff.

8. Cost of marketing.

9. Cost of reps that take care of retailers.

So yes, you can get a cheap Chinese replica for like $2-$5 bucks, but that's usually without the middle man and direct from the manufacture. If you actually take the time to think of all the steps that Ray-Ban takes, it's not a cheap operation.

Comment below, want to know your thoughts if you agree or disagree with the pricing of Ray-Ban.