Driving unnecessary cost out of tree tubes

This blog is about the history, development and applications of tree tubes.  But it is also chronicles the evolution of the companies that are trying - as has happened with so many technologies - to drive down the cost of using tree tubes and make them accessible to the largest number of users.

In the previous post I discussed one company's obsession with keeping the final, delivered cost of tree tubes as low as possible to make them affordable for more tree planters.

Here is a great post from another company, Tree Protection Supply, which shares this philosophy, using creative, custom packaging and aggressive shopping of freight services to keep their prices on tree tubes  low.

So much of the price of the things we buy has nothing to do with the cost of raw materials and manufacturing, and everything to do with secondary costs such as transport, overhead, packaging, marketing - not to mention profit margin.

In the case of tree tubes many suppliers have extremely high secondary costs and profit margins.  It is therefore possible for companies that focus on keeping secondary costs to an absolute minimum to sell a BETTER PRODUCT at a LOWER PRICE than tree tube companies selling a product of lesser quality.

Hmmm ... Better product at a lower price.  That sounds to me like the way a technology goes from a niche product to widespread acceptance.  And tree tubes are definitely following that trajectory!