Greeting Wouter, You bring up a very good thought, we are doing just a bit more than that ('one free per order'): no matter customer order other parts or not, they will get the CB0703 promotion deal before the US labor day. Actually, there are people actually just want the PCB, I don't know why. (I knew some of the customer actually have most of the CB0703 SMD components in stock in-house, others might just want to take a look. I was told there are customers actually bought 5 to 6 sets of the CB0703 component kit every time, put them together and market them at the local market. This seems a very brilliant idea to me.) Another possibility I can imagined is: maybe the customer use it for other purpose rather than the PICKit2. It is a matter of fact, you can do many things with the PIC18F2550 USB function, and the CB0703 have many hardware design can be re-used for different applications. The initial idea of this promotion is for the beginners who never tried SMD technology before, and they count about half of the CB0703 customers. The promotion makes it possible for beginners getting the PCB at low price first when they are not so sure about how to handling the SMD technology. Once those beginners get used to the SMD technology (the tricks are: you need good flux and fine solder/solder-iron tips for manual assembly), we were told they love the SMD technology. Here is a pdf version of the assembly guide which shows how you can accomplish the mission step by step: http://www.auelectronics.com/pdfs/Assemble_PICkit2.pdf Funny N. Au Group Electronics, New Bedford, MA, http://www.AuElectronics.com ----- Original Message ---- From: Wouter van Ooijen To: Microcontroller discussion list - Public. Sent: Saturday, August 16, 2008 2:26:46 PM Subject: Re: [AD]CB0703 1cent/PCB deal ends after Labor day (Sept-01-2008) > Thanks for the advise, and you are more than welcome to contribute to the brain-storm. As for the price: you are not actually selling the PCBs for $.01 each, (for good reason, otherwise I would buy 1000 and start reselling them for more). The more honest way to advertise your offer would be 'one free per order'. As for Shipping/Handling fees (for internet shops): most customers understand that a shop needs to a margin on products, but don't realize that an order itself has certain associated costs, like bank fees, administration, handling. Those cost can of course be included in the per-product margins, but that would favor small orders at the expense of large orders. So charging a fixed fee is a simple an reasonably accurate way to be fair to all customers. Contrary to what most customers expect driving to the shop and picking up the goods does not mean that the S/H fee should be reduced to nothing: only the shipping costs are eliminated, and the handling will often take *more* time than for a standard (postal delivery) order. So to be fair the S/H fee for pick-it-up orders should probably be higher.... -- Wouter van Ooijen -- ------------------------------------------- Van Ooijen Technische Informatica: www.voti.nl consultancy, development, PICmicro products docent Hogeschool van Utrecht: www.voti.nl/hvu -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist