A whole buck. Yeah, that'll really put a dent in a companies wallet.
Even if it only costs a dollar to produce, it certainly costs the company more money than that to sell it.
Say the dollar for production is solely for materials and assembly. Okay, but what about R&D costs? That case didn't materialize out of thin air. They had to design it, build it, test it, fabricate molds for it, etc. That is a significant cost, sometimes the most significant cost of bringing a product to market, and that all happens before it can even be manufactured.
After it is manufactured you then need to ship it from the point of production to more localized distribution centers. At those distribution centers, which cost money to build, furnish, and maintain, you need to prepare it for its final destination.
In the instance of an online order, that's the consumer. Web presence has a whole host of costs that I won't consider here, primarily because my experience is in B&M retail organizations and not telesales/online organizations. For B&M stores, consider the following:
Most companies use just-in-time inventory systems wherein they receive exactly what they need based on a variety of factors, including sales. That sort of system also costs money to implement and maintain.
It somehow has to get from the distribution center to the point of sale. A company the size of Apple probably doesn't use their own semi trucks, but likely contracts with FedEx, UPS, etc. Again, more money.
Then it gets to a retail store. That retail store cost a few million dollars to build, and it costs a lot of money to maintain. It needs to be adequately staffed with people to help you buy this case. It needs a space for inventory in the back and people to manage that. It needs a team of people to merchandise it in the right section. And, once someone picks it up from the shelf, there needs to be a point of sale system. That requires hardware and software. The software needs IT people for troubleshooting and, if built in-house, a team to focus on upgrades. That's a lot of salaries.
If you buy it with a credit card then Apple has to give away a portion of that sale to the merchant (Visa, MasterCard, AMEX). For small purchases that's a fairly large amount (hence why lots of local businesses violate their merchant agreements by requiring minimum purchases on cards). They also need to budget for a certain number of chargebacks due to disputed purchases.
They also have to build the cost of theft into the final price. Small items, such as cases, are taken quite frequently.
There's also marketing, web presence, online sales, telesales, and a dozen of other things Apple must pay for in order to make that case available to you. All of these things are taken into account when pricing a product to ensure that it doesn't reflect a loss on the company's balance sheets. Apple feels that, given all of these factors PLUS the rest of the market (third party manufacturers) that $29 is an acceptable price for their bumper.
If you don't agree with it, that's cool. Buy another case. If the market reveals to Apple that $29 is not an appropriate price then they will adjust accordingly. Maybe they can't so they'll discontinue the product, like they did with the $100 leather cases for the original iPhone.
I just think that we sometimes forget that the cost of manufacturing a product is not its final cost on a company's balance sheet.
