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Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic
1000 units is a huge order. I am sure we could come up with 100 or so MR orders, but 1000?  |
To date, we've received 120 requests from people who want a shot at buying a NAEB ereader when it becomes available. I put up the sign-up form on our website on Thursday, 3/1/2007.
Look, part of the issue we have is that Bookeen wants at least 200 units pre-paid before they'll ship and we don't get any price break at all at that point. We get enough of a price break with 1,000 units to allow us to, after including our *own* costs, but not shipping or taxes, charge around $350 per unit. If we can get 5,000 units ordered and paid for, we'll bring that down under $300. IIRC, Bookeen won't give us another price break unless we order some ridiculous amount like 100,000 or 1,000,000 units.
To be fair, we first started out trying to actually design our own ereader. And it is doable. Doable for somewhat less than $200/unit. But only if we were willing to order 50,000 units at once. We would *like* to go that route, but as we're not flush with capital, we figured our best strategy would be to make a 'version 1.0' NAEB ereader branded device from Hanlin, Bookeen or STAReBOOK and plough some of the revenue back into developing our own 'version 2.0'. Remember, if we can gain a reputation for being a 'player' within the ereader sales community, we can get the primary manufacturers to deal with us. And that's important because the e-ink/e-paper times, they are a-changin'. By this time next year, 16-color and 64-color displays, available for immediate integration into retail product designs, are likely. As are faster refresh rates.
However, if we don't get *something* out there, we'll be in the same position with the OEM sources as we are this year.
Derek Benner