How much should a good leather jacket cost?

What’s going on everyone? Today I’m going to talk about the sticky part of just how leather jackets are sold as far as the price goes. If you’ve every gone online and visited several different sites, you may have seen what seems to be the same leather jacket. What surprises you is everyone has a different price, and some are real cheap while others are real high. How can that be?

Well let me tell you just how leather jackets get bought and sold. If your dealing with a major manufacture of brand name items, you have to become a dealer of that brand. Once your approved you are told how much you can mark up an item for, or even flat out told “this sells for X amount, so sell it at that price.

But any item that is a non brand item, like most leather jackets and leather items, anyone can buy it from a wholesaler and then sell it for whatever they want to sell it for. A Harley Davidson leather jacket is a brand name, so you have to become a dealer and then you would be told what to sell that leather jacket for. But all these motorcycle sites and leather shops that sell leather jackets buy non brand name items. So then they can sell them for whatever they want. So how much DO they mark up?

Well again, they can sell them for whatever they want. Now these are high quality leather jackets, let me be clear about that. In fact the same place that makes that Harley Davidson leather jacket also makes tons of non brand name leather jackets. They just stamp that “Harley Davidson” logo on the ones that go to them, but otherwise they are the same damn jacket. What you pay extra for is the name.

Now like anything that sells, there is a normal range that you expect to pay for an item. A lamp cost around $10.00 to $50.00 bucks. A kids plastic toy truck, $2.00 to $10.00. But leather jackets, there seems to be a wide range of prices. Some people really mark up a lot, then try to put all kinds of fancy names on the leather jacket.

“this is a top quality, nappa buffed, genuine buttery smooth leather jacket with custom studs”. Translation, it’s a split, sanded leather jacket with studs stamped on it. Don’t get me started on the names they come up with to push those bonded or patchwork leather jackets!! Unfortunately most people don’t know much about leather so they buy whatever someone says.

On average, most mark up leather items between 40% to as much as 300%. Quite a big difference huh! A big portion of them mark up around 100%. Leather jackets and items really are not that expensive when bought wholesale. But most mark up a lot, so that’s why leather jackets seem to cost so much.

A good quality motorcycle jacket, when bought wholesale, cost around $45.00 to $110.00. So, most sell it retail for $90.00 to around $220.00. Now I’m talking quality stuff, not cheap crap, and I’m talking about a thick, tuff motorcycle jacket. Good quality suede leather jackets and coats cost less because suede is cheaper to make.

So if your buying a good quality motorcycle leather jacket that does not have a brand name like Harley Davidson, expect to pay between $150.00 to $400.00. There are some family owned leather jacket dealers that really sell high quality leather, and paying over $400.00 is worth it. But for most a great leather jacket can be had for around $200.00.

Anyone can also call a leather jacket anything they want. Let’s say 2 retailers buy the same leather jacket from the same wholesaler. Retailer A can call theirs “The Montana classic collection”. Retailer B can call theirs “The Robinson family premium collection”. Oh, sounds pricey huh! So one might sell it for $90.00 while the other sells it for $300.00. But it’s the SAME damn jacket!

If you see a motorcycle leather jacket that cost $50.00, trust me, it’s not a good jacket. So that rules out all those $18.00 jackets you see on ebay! Ebay leather is junk, period. Now regular fashion jackets, dress leather jackets and so on can cost a lot less. You can get a good looking dress leather jacket for $60.00 or so. That’s because it’s thinner leather, which is fine because you don’t need it for protection.

I could go on and on, but you get the picture. If you see a leather jacket online you like and see it on 5 different sites, get it from whoever is selling it the lowest, because it’s the same jacket. But don’t forget the shipping cost, see how much that is. Some places lower the item cost but have high shipping to offset that. So what about me, what will I mark up and charge for shipping when I open my leather store?

Well, I’m going to only sell in the USA. Most want to know right to the penny what it will cost as they order. So I’m going to have free shipping. That way if you see a leather jacket for $100.00, you know that’s exactly what it’s going to cost you. But I am going to figure that in to the leather items price.

So, I think I’ll just mark up every item I sell 60%. That’s 50% markup for the item, plus 10% more markup to take care of the free shipping. Like I said, most mark up 100%, plus add shipping charges. So I think that’s more than fair. Plus you will know that everything I sell is quality leather, I’m not going to carry any cheap crap leather.

I hope that gives you a little more information about how leather jackets are bought and sold, how they mark them up and what to look for. Of course popular name brand fashion jackets can cost much, much more. But your only paying for the name, it cost them the same amount as Joe the leather man down the road!