I like pink. It’s not my “favorite color,” but generally I like it. I’ve also noticed that it seems to be a color that a lot of designers avoid unless something is specifically aimed at a female demographic.
That’s probably why the term “pink tax” has come to be used to describe “the tendency for products marketed specifically toward women to be more expensive than those marketed toward men.”
When it comes to literally pink products, however, I have found a surprising number of cases where the pink products are priced somewhat lower than other colors. As I said, I like pink, and I have a number of men’s clothing items that are pink that I picked out because I liked the color. To my surprise, I’ve often found that the same item in other colors was priced slightly higher.
The coffee maker above caught my eye today when I was shopping for a new small press-pot. I liked the color but thought it would probably be too expensive for my use case and that I would probably have to settle for a black version of the same pot. To my surprize, the pink version was 20% cheaper than the boring old black one.
I’ve found this with tools and kitchen gear and car accessories. I even found some discounted pink horse tape. I once bought a silicone sleeve for my car’s key fob and discovered that a set with one pink and one black cover was less expensive than buying the black sleeve by itself. The pink sleeve was less than free.
What’s up with this? I suspect some enlightened designer convinces a manufacturer to try pink, then they find out that the pink products don’t sell as well and they end up on the sale rack. Just speculating, but I was happy to be able to add to my collection of discounted pink products today.
—2p