Business Atlas
Things this atlas does not know. Each entry is a question that specialists
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expertise the answer needs.
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one settles it alone.
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Showing 21 to 21 of 21 open questions, page 2 of 2.
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This Entry
What year, and by whom, did the razor-and-blades pricing model actually emerge?
Why It Is Open The razor-and-blades model is popularly attributed to King Camp Gillette around the time he patented the safety razor, but Gillette's own razors were priced high when introduced and only came down after his patents expired in the 1920s. General encyclopedic sources credit the pricing pattern to his competitors rather than to Gillette himself, without naming a specific year or company for its first deliberate use.
What Would Settle It A business history source that names the specific competitor firm and year that first deliberately priced a durable good low to sell a proprietary consumable at a markup, rather than a general encyclopedia entry that only debunks the Gillette myth.
Expertise Needed Business History
Question posed in
Wikipedia, Razor and Blades Business Model, History section.