Astak Mentor eBook readers with WiFi and Touchscreen (read-only)

[helten]

Originally Posted by Over

Unless they take the dishonest route, by selling it for 588€ in europe (that's $920), the so famous conversion ($1 = 1€).

Yeah that has been seen before

[soilwork]

Originally Posted by griffonwing

Selling thousands at $350 would reap much more profit than selling hundreds at $600. It's not cost per unit that they want to increase, it's units sold that they should keep in mind.

Not necessarily. If cost (production, advertising, distribution, and so on) is over 350$, selling more units below cost means losing more money.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by soilwork

Not necessarily. If cost (production, advertising, distribution, and so on) is over 350$, selling more units below cost means losing more money.

Well, if you lose a $1 a unit won't you make it up with volume?

Dale

[soilwork]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Well, if you lose a $1 a unit won't you make it up with volume?
Dale

If you lose $1 per unit sold,
- when you sell 100 units, you will lose 100$.
- when you sell 10000 units, you will lose 10000$.
As long as you sell below cost, selling more (volume) will harm you more.

Firms have no reason to sell below cost unless they can get money from somewhere else. For Amazon, if they want, they can sell Kindle below cost since they can make up the loss by selling books. However, Astak is in a quite different situation from Amazon. Since Astak is going to support mobipocket or ereader, Astak will not get any money once a unit is sold. Only book sellers (mobipocket, ereader, booksonboards, baen, fitionwise, ...) will make money. So Astak has no reason to sell below cost.

My point is that selling below cost is not good regardless of sales volume. Actually, it will get worse with increased sales. Of course, whether selling at $350 is below cost is an open question.

[Over]

And let's be realistic. If there will be people willing to pay more, they will charge more.

[Luigino]

Well...as more than a person said, there are also persons that doesn't really need additionals stuffs like WiFi or whatever...like me... and there should be the possibility to build a version without those additional optionals and it would cost surely less than expected for the market...
And I am sure there are always MORE and MORE people than doesn't need than additional things than those would like to have everything...
I always say: the market is a conquist when you satisfy EVERYONE... so just let's make two versions with two different prices: a 6" with optionals like WiFi and stuffs at $299-$350 as someone said and a 6" without optionals just only with a SD/microSD reader for more capacity at like $180-$230... so also people that are "poor" on free budget like me can buy it and Astak gains market.

That's my idea and I hope Astak will make the model without ANYTHING...that's just what I need...

Ciao! ;-)

[Boreras]

Originally Posted by Luigino

Well...as more than a person said, there are also persons that doesn't really need additionals stuffs like WiFi or whatever...like me... and there should be the possibility to build a version without those additional optionals and it would cost surely less than expected for the market...

The higher the amount of different models, the higher the price. Extra design means extra cost, but marketing, logistics and mostly production all require extra money. In short, the thing would end up being more epxensive, so that in the end, the price point of your low-end model, could end up suprsingly high (and the higher-end model is also more expansive). Only Astak knows the increase of price, of course.
The low and high-end products need not differ much in design, yet it seems likely the design would end up different from a single design.

Astak needs to predict whether the extra costs are worth it. (it is not unlikely they would use sites such as these to predict what costumers want).
I'm going to buy the 9.7" with all the bells and whistles anyway (note to Astak: make sure the extra peripherals require no power or as little as possible when not in use (quite obvious, but forgetting would be disastrous for battery life)).

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by soilwork

If you lose $1 per unit sold,
- when you sell 100 units, you will lose 100$.
- when you sell 10000 units, you will lose 10000$.
As long as you sell below cost, selling more (volume) will harm you more.

Firms have no reason to sell below cost unless they can get money from somewhere else. For Amazon, if they want, they can sell Kindle below cost since they can make up the loss by selling books. However, Astak is in a quite different situation from Amazon. Since Astak is going to support mobipocket or ereader, Astak will not get any money once a unit is sold. Only book sellers (mobipocket, ereader, booksonboards, baen, fitionwise, ...) will make money. So Astak has no reason to sell below cost.

My point is that selling below cost is not good regardless of sales volume. Actually, it will get worse with increased sales. Of course, whether selling at $350 is below cost is an open question.

Well, duh. My comment was supposed to be sarcastic and I was supporting your information. It is an old saying that is intended to support the fact that loosing money cannot be made up by selling more units.

Dale

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Well, if you lose a $1 a unit won't you make it up with volume?

Dale

You forgot to add the :toungeincheek: smilie.

BOb

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Well, duh. My comment was supposed to be sarcastic and I was supporting your information. It is an old saying that is intended to support the fact that loosing money cannot be made up by selling more units.

Dale

Actually, if there are add-on or backend sales as they call it sometimes loosing money per unit is by design... see Playstation, XBox, XBox 360, etc.

BOb

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Actually, if there are add-on or backend sales as they call it sometimes loosing money per unit is by design... see Playstation, XBox, XBox 360, etc.

BOb

sure there is. It is called giving away the razor to sell razor blades.

dale

[tirsales]

Originally Posted by Boreras

I'm going to buy the 9.7" with all the bells and whistles anyway (note to Astak: make sure the extra peripherals require no power or as little as possible when not in use (quite obvious, but forgetting would be disastrous for battery life)).

Second that.
9,7'', Touchscreen, WiFi, USB-Host, Stand-By, Audio-Out, etc
I will buy the device with the most whistles I can pay for.
And yes - there are good reasons for that apart from gadget-lust

[ddimick]

Originally Posted by soilwork

If you lose $1 per unit sold,
- when you sell 100 units, you will lose 100$.
- when you sell 10000 units, you will lose 10000$.
As long as you sell below cost, selling more (volume) will harm you more.

That's not really true. As volumes go up the cost to manufacture goes down. Buying components in bulk is cheaper, and contract manufacturers will bid more aggressively on larger contracts that keep more of their workers employed for longer periods, even if at a reduced profit. Cash flow stability and predictability have real value that suppliers are willing to compete for.

Of course there is a threshold where any additional increase in volume does not net a reciprocal decrease in manufacturing cost.

[6charlong]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Well, if you lose a $1 a unit won't you make it up with volume?

Dale

Actually, you can make money that way, but only if you sell eBooks. On the PC, eReader supports a button to connect the user to eReader.com to buy books for it. While Astak couldn't make money selling at a loss, booksellers can. For example, if BooksOnBoard sold WiFi/touch-screen Mentors programmed so tapping the "Buy" button takes you by WiFi to their sales site, they could sell Mentors at a loss and make up for it from book sales. That's closer to the iPod/Kindle business model.

[soilwork]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Well, duh. My comment was supposed to be sarcastic and I was supporting your information. It is an old saying that is intended to support the fact that loosing money cannot be made up by selling more units.
Dale

Oops, I guess I completely missed your point. . In my defense, since English is not my first language, it is hard to read subtle humor.