On Sun, Nov 20, 2016 at 11:37:51AM -0700, Denny Esterline wrote:
> >
> >
> > You mention a special buy price of $1 for the Raspberry Pi
> > Zero.  Where was that price available from?  Are you aware of any
> > other low-cost suppliers for the Pi Zero?
> >
>=20
> I would also be interested to know such things.
> From what I can tell, the idea of a Pi Zero for $5 is a marketing gimmick=
..

I agree that it is a marketing gimmick due to a supply side production issu=
e. As
Peter stated, the RasPi Foundation is generating the boards on lines
leased from Sony. There isn't enough margin to do continous production. The
line is shared with RasPi 3 production, which does have enough margin to
carry the limited production of the Zeros.

> The few places that will sell a Pi Zero that is _not_ part of a kit have =
a
> limit of one and shipping and handling that at least triple the price.

An unfortunate consequence of the RasPi foundation requiring retailers to
sell at cost. I'm fortunate enough to have two MicroCenter's in the Atlanta
area where Microcenter essentially eats the shipping from their
distribution centers.  It is a special circumstance I admit.

So while they are available, for most of the retailers the only way to
recoup the cost is to bundle as you have seen, or limit purchases so that
you come into the store (Microcenter) or purchase other items to balance
out the shipping.

> The limit one prevents me from buying enough to spread the shipping out
> over enough to bring it down to what I consider reasonable.=20

What limit would make it reasonable? I know for a fact if there isn't a
limit on bare boards, they will be bought in large quantities and then
resold on the tertiary market.

>Others will only
> sell it as part of a kit of stuff that I don't want and the kit price run=
s
> well into the $30 range.

Agreed. But I cannot see any wide scale distribution at that price point.
For example the back end of that Microcenter 99 cent special was that if
you bought more than one, the price shot up to $10 each I believe. And you
still had to come into the store.

It is clear that the RasPi Foundation isn't interested in subsidizing the
Pi Zero for wide scale production. It seems that the Compute Module is in
fact the target board for that market. And the unsubsidized price on the
Model A compatible compute module is $30. I just read that a RasPI 3
compute module version is on the horizon. However, I haven't see a price
point yet.

BAJ

>=20
>=20
> -Denny
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Byron A. Jeff
Associate Professor: Department of Computer Science and Information Technol=
ogy
College of Information and Mathematical Sciences
Clayton State University
http://faculty.clayton.edu/bjeff
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