10 years ago, selling gloves for £35 was only just about feasible - my original gloves from the first run back in 2013 were £35, with pads £50 and I made maybe 15/20% on each pair. Fine when I was selling them from the 3rd floor of my uni house funding beers on a Wednesday, not fine in the real world lol.
With the abhorrent increases in costs over the past 3/4 years (materials/labour/importing/shipping/rent/utilities - the list goes on) coupled with the
bs BSI safety standards malarky that's
still ongoing, if I was to sell for anything less than I am currently I simply wouldn't be able to operate. Willow costs alone rose by ~27% over the 2022/23 winter and softs in general haven't been a million miles off it, the rate of cost increases in cricket I've seen over the past decade far exceed inflation and it isn't getting any better.
You'll always get a better deal from home-based micro-companies trading below the VAT threshold, same with any industry - it doesn't mean the rest of us are dining off a silver platter every night (if that was the case I wouldn't still be contracting full-time alongside building Neon!! We can all dream mind
).