On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 00:31:39 -0500, David Maynard
wrote:


No, there are many "little costs" a product manufacturer would
just as soon do away with if they hadn't done so initially. It
is simply one of many expenses.

You say it's a 'marketing tool' and I point out manufacturer's like 'low
cost' marketing tools. Which is why I say it flies in the face of it being
'of little cost' because you claim they'd just as soon do away with it.
Why? if it's a marketing tool of such little cost?

Because no matter how little the cost might be, it is still a
cost, one they would gladly reduce or eliminate if done without
impact on their bottom line... simple as that.


But again, the way you put it gives a distorted impression. Companies sell
perceived 'value' and cost, from whatever source, eats away at that. They'd
"just as soon do away with" advertising costs, if they could sell just as
much without it. And they'd "just as soon do away with" manufacturing
costs, if the products would just magically appear on their own. And they'd
"just as soon do away with" R&D, if they could sell the same thing forever.

Hardly. Product must be advertised if sales contracts aren't
secured for sufficient % of target manufacturing capacity.

Which is what I said.

Manufacturing costs themselves are also a very basic requirement
of producing this type of good,

Which is what I said.

Yes, but the difference here is one of basic requirement. It is
a basic requirement to spend the $ on manufacturing the product,
perhaps even marketing to a certain extent, but features like a
warranty are not absolutely essential, not one that lengthly.
When seeking OEM sales there is need to keep quality at a certain
standard while warranty isn't the factor it would be to retail.
In other words, the focus on their core market. IMO, dropping
quality is more of a risk to OEM sales than dropping warranty
length would be to retail sales.


while a retail lenghtly warranty
is not,

That's purely your opinion.

Name all the power supplies you know of with 3 year warranty. Do
they account for majority of sales?
Historically there is seldom if ever discussion of PSU warranty
length as criterion for selection.

Call it my opinion if you like, but it also looks statistically
sound at first glance.


World's biggest manufacturer, Delta, doesn't advertise retail at
all. No 3 year warranties either, yet I'd take a Delta of same
wattage over a Thermaltake any day.

Is this supposed to 'prove' something? Because all you've done is describe
a part of their business model and, presumably, a part of how you make a
buying decision, in that particular case. Other companies and people make
their own judgments and they're not necessarily the same as yours.

Never claimed they were did I?
You seem stuck in argument mode again, it's doubtful anything
productive will be accomplished at this point.

I downplayed the importance of a warranty period and gave an
example where it's not needed, yet you throw manufacturing costs
into the mix... One can be lowered with less devastating effects
than the other, and is.


Simply not true, even from simply the direct cost aspect. Throw in
reputation and the "who'd buy this piece of junk" potential company killer
and it's a quite serious matter.

You are completely misreading what I wrote.
I made no reference to quality as a design decision, nor of
companies reputation,

I didn't 'misread' what you wrote. I'm simply explaining that those things
are a part of the warranty, or lack thereof, 'cost' and a company's
decision process regarding them, whether you happened to have mentioned
them or not.

Certainly you did misread, as I never suggested cost-cutting to
reduce quality as a good alterative, yet that is what you wrote
about.


only that the cost of fullfilling waranty
is easily offset by a much higher retail price...

And how do you come to the presumption that anyone can just arbitrarily
raise price? much less 'easily'? Or that the 'high price' isn't a result of
other factors, such as volume, increased component cost, etc..

How would you come to the presumption that anyone can't?
Anyone CAN just raise the price in a free market, and often be
successful at that if they differentiate the product, even in
ways unessential or detrimental to it's function.

When arguing that high-price is a result of volume of such a
commodity item, we have a chicken-or-egg scenario. High price
reduces sales volume, units are selling so production goes down
or ceases... or vice-versa, the limited production in itself
artifically keeps price high only due to manufacturer's blunder
or limited resources.


nothing more
than that as it would be pointless to examine every potential
aspect of a business model in this thread just as it would be in
any other hardware part thread.

Except that you are specifically making business model assumptions,
if not
outright declarations, with your assertions of how much someone can
arbitrarily raise price, how 'little' warranty costs are, and the rest.

Clearly you made the assumptions of where I was going with my
inital posts towards some point you wanted to make. Go ahead and
make the point but keep in mind Ithat your summary of my position
is not accurate.


It costs just as much to make the ones 'lying around' as it does the ones
being sold to make profit, except they generate no revenue and, instead,
eat up costs for the stocking, before you even get to the cost of the
actual warranty replacement.


On the surface it would seem to cost as much for the added stock,
but it does not. Cost per unit goes down with higher number of
units.

If you're making so much 'warranty' stock as to significantly affect your
cost per unit ratios then you're in deep doo-doo.


Wouldn't that be a "business model assumption" you just made?
It would also be only an opinion, without knowing what the cost
is to run off a few more units from an assembly line already set
up and running, parts already purchased (so many are shared
between different models), workers trained and lines running.
Cost per unit as an average of total produced is different than
cost per unit of an additional run, the former being much higher
cost. That is a basic truth in mass manufacturing, disagree all
you like as I'm not going to bother arguing it.




ANY successful business model is going to have warranty costs covered in
the price of the product. That, in and of itself, is not 'revealing' of
anything.

.... which is basically a restatement of my original point.