From Wikipedia: Customer cost refers not only to the price of a product, but it also encompasses the purchase costs, use costs and the post-use costs.
Or, one could say
total cost describes the total economic cost of production and is made up of variable costs, which vary according to the quantity of a good produced and include inputs such as labor and raw materials, plus fixed costs
you are both referring to 2 different concepts, and one of you does not know it. ;)
I was not talking about production costs. In fact we were actually talking about the cost to the buyer. Total production costs are for accounting purposes but price vs cost to the buyer is mostly different and is driven by other things.
For example, John buys a $10 pair of shoes thinking he has gotten a great deal because he didn’t spend $130 on the really well made pair. in three months the $10 shoes have fallen apart.John buys another $10 pair of shoes. This is his buying pattern. Consider if he had spent the $130 on a pair of shoes that have a life time of at least ten years(because of how well they are made). In that ten years John will have purchased 4X10 pairs of $10 shoes. even allowing for a resoling or two and polishing spiff up the old pair, the $130 pair of shoes is easily a better deal by a factor of two. Why? Because the price ($10 vs $130) does not take into account the actual cost of owning said shoe