On Tue, 15 Apr 2003, Alex Kilpatrick wrote:

> > I did one a year and a half or so back...  there *was* no
> > competing product, ours was the first.  I did the hardware &
> > firmware for another guy, who did the marketing and sales.
> > Since having it work properly one time would save the
> > customer about $35K, he was selling them like mad for $1300+
> > each.  Cost to manufacture was well under $200.  Seller was
> > very happy indeed, and so were the customers...  even at what
> > appears to be a very high profit, they were getting a great deal.
> >
>
> If your description is correct, it sounds like you priced it too low.

I didn't price it, but if I had I'd have probably gone a lot lower.
Dunno, though, maybe not - it's a pretty limited audience.  How many
people in your neighborhood drive 300+ ton trucks?  8-)

> I have a friend in manufacturing, and he said most people overestimate
> by an order of magnitude how much something costs to make (this is
> mass production).

And most engineers, I think, underestimate the amount of overhead and
expenses by as much.  Advertising, packaging, shipping, credit card
processing fees, overnight shipping for emergency parts orders, taxes,
paper and toner or print shop fees for manuals, web site costs, shipping
labels, the list goes on and on.

Dale
--
It's a thankless job, but I've got a lot of Karma to burn off.

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