Taiwanese cart cases

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.vectrex (More info?)

Got the final pricing back today -


Mold cost - $5,297.00

500 cases in black ABS - $0.255 each
500 cases in clear ABS - $0.360 each

Obviously, better pricing for higher volumes

These are the prices he gave me today, I'll have to ask if they include any
taxes etc. Of course they'll be shipping too, but they don't weigh a lot so
it shouldn't be too bad.

Note - this is for a case with the clips


What do you think ?




Richard H.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.vectrex (More info?)

Well it comes out to be $10.849 per case, not a very good deal. Now
if you ordered 5000 cases, the price would then be $1.31 each (at the
$.255 rate). 10000 would be $.78 each. Little less for larger
quantities of course, but 500 wouldn't do very well.

Corey
8-Bit Classics

On Wed, 27 Jul 2005 19:21:21 +0100, "Richard Hutchinson"
<richard.hutchinson@dsl.pipex.com> wrote:

>Got the final pricing back today -
>
>
>Mold cost - $5,297.00
>
>500 cases in black ABS - $0.255 each
>500 cases in clear ABS - $0.360 each
>
>Obviously, better pricing for higher volumes
>
>These are the prices he gave me today, I'll have to ask if they include any
>taxes etc. Of course they'll be shipping too, but they don't weigh a lot so
>it shouldn't be too bad.
>
>Note - this is for a case with the clips
>
>
>What do you think ?
>
>
>
>
>Richard H.
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.vectrex (More info?)

That was also my line of thinking. But what a heck - if Richard thinks
he can sell all those
cases - more power to him!


Peteski

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.vectrex (More info?)

> Well it comes out to be $10.849 per case, not a very good deal. Now
> if you ordered 5000 cases, the price would then be $1.31 each (at the
> $.255 rate). 10000 would be $.78 each. Little less for larger
> quantities of course, but 500 wouldn't do very well.


Heh, I don't think Richard was thinking about getting just 500. For 1000
cases sold at a similar price to what Mark Shaker sells them at (maybe more
for the clear cases) that wouldn't be too far off getting the money back.
And then into profit on a second run. Buying 5000 or 10000 wouldn't be too
clever IMO since I very much doubt there's enough demand to shift 'em.
Especially when you also consider the batch Sean is having manufactured as
we speak - there's going to be a glut of cart cases if we're not careful.

Clear cases would be cool though.

Alex

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.vectrex (More info?)

I would honestly look for other places for better tooling fees. It
can be expensive, but wow. Anyway, the other thing I would do is look
at the larger quantities if ordering (maybe around 5000). Start
advertising selling them at cost or near cost ($1.50). Depends on who
wants to do some homebrewing, you might sell a few thousand. I might
even consider picking up 100. But unless you have the cash,
prepayment would be required. After the order, then they go up to say
$2. Prices very, buy you get the idea.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.vectrex (More info?)

>I would honestly look for other places for better tooling fees. It
> can be expensive, but wow.

It's really not a bad price. Yeah, it might well be possible to find a tool
maker that can do it for less, but I very much doubt it would be *that* much
cheaper.

> Anyway, the other thing I would do is look
> at the larger quantities if ordering (maybe around 5000). Start
> advertising selling them at cost or near cost ($1.50). Depends on who
> wants to do some homebrewing, you might sell a few thousand. I might
> even consider picking up 100.

I think you're overestimating the size of the market. You'd need about 50
new homebrews to sell them all. That's based on a rough average figure.
The most popular titles will sell 150-250 copies, whilst others struggle to
sell 100. But if there are that many new games competing, the number sold
of each will go down. (WHich is what's happening with the Atari 2600.)
Also bear in mind that many homebrewers don't make the carts themselves and
have Mark Shaker produce/sell them. And he uses Sean's cases and will have
a large stock of them very soon.

I personally think that getting 5000 cases made would be insane.

Alex

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.vectrex (More info?)

Alex H wrote:
>>I would honestly look for other places for better tooling fees. It
>>can be expensive, but wow.
>
>
> It's really not a bad price. Yeah, it might well be possible to find a tool
> maker that can do it for less, but I very much doubt it would be *that* much
> cheaper.

[...]

> I personally think that getting 5000 cases made would be insane.

FWIW, this lurker agrees...

To Richard H: so, for smaller volumes where the mold cost dominates the
per-unit cost, it would be good to know what the same supplier would charge
for a mold with no clips, yes?

-Jason =:^)

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.vectrex (More info?)

Richard Hutchinson wrote:
> Got the final pricing back today -
>
> Mold cost - $5,297.00
>
> 500 cases in black ABS - $0.255 each
> 500 cases in clear ABS - $0.360 each
>
> Obviously, better pricing for higher volumes

[snip]

> Note - this is for a case with the clips
>
> What do you think ?

I think the mold is a lot of money, but it was always going to be. It
obviously compares well with the price you got from the UK supplier;
less money for a better cart.

I don't think the price per cart is at all a problem as it could be
twice as much and not make any difference to a VecFlash or homebrew cart
cost.

The tricky part is how to spread the investment cost of making the mold
over the cart production runs. There's no way 5000 cases are going to be
shifted over any reasonable timescale, so you can't just stick a dollar
on each cart. On the other hand, this will give us a better cart and a
hopefully more reliable supply than we've got at the moment.

Tricky, tricky, tricky...

Roberto/.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.vectrex (More info?)

Yup, those sliding molds cost an arm and a leg!


All for a little tab...
Did anybody ever figure out what happened with the original Vectrex
molds?
They're probably stashed in some warehouse collecting dust.

Peteski

 

[FURY]

Archived from groups: rec.games.vectrex (More info?)

Richard Hutchinson wrote:
> At the moment there seems to be only George and I in the consortium. My max
> investment is $1000, I don't think George wants to put in the other $3,165
> ;-)
>
> Richard H.


You're right. $3165 needs to be broken
down by a few more participants : )
We still need to do this, though.
Otherwise same old, same old...

Speaking of which, has Mark received the
SK order as of yet? I haven't heard from
him, so I'm assuming no. I didn't pre-order
any, and I'm glad that I didn't because it's
already taken too long. I honestly thought
that he (Kelly) was going to try and prove
us all wrong, getting the order in within a
few weeks. No dice. It's August!

George

 

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Richard,
It seems you are taking the lead here so forgive me for suggesting a
course of action. I think you need to clarify what you want to acheive.
There are probably 3 types of reader here.
1) Established guys who have a proven need for carts like yourself,
Alex and George
2) Newbie homebrewers who might like the odd dozen (who could buy from
Mr Shaker)
3) Vectrex fans who might have a few quid to invest in something that
helps the Vextrex community.

I'd be cool for 50 carts (which doesn't help much) for catagory 2
reasons, but I guess it's probably catagory 3 that is going to help you
out here, and for that people would want to know the proposed model. If
there was investment then who would buy, own & distribute all the
carts? Would they be the funky clear ones we all really want. (which
might sell better too, and be a USP over SK's) Would investors be able
to get (say) $0.50 back for each cart sold? That was assuming the
effective $2 suggested with the volume of 5,000. I would think there
would be some sympathetic Vectrex fans who'd be happy to put down $500
with the expectation of a 25% return over 2 years (a guess as to how
long it would take to shift them.) Clearly noone would get rich out of
putting the money up, but as long as they don't make a loss, I'm sure
people would be up for it.

IMHO the problem is where to store them and how to manage the
"shareholders" Maybe it wouldn't be too much of a pain if the
returns/profits were paid every 6 months based solely on what had been
sold? Would you be up for managing that? It's quite an imposition but I
think this is probably the model you need to get the money in. If you
were willing to mastermind it and commit to at least trying to return
shareholders investments with the token "profit" then I for one would
chip in $500.

On the other hand if you are just prepared to lump together orders for
people who want to own the carts themselves (catagory 1) then I think
thats perfectly understandable, but at least a statement would clarify
what exactly is needed to proceed.

Hope this is of use and received in the constructive manner it is
intended.

Regards Shaddam

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.vectrex (More info?)

>Did anybody ever figure out what happened with the original Vectrex
>molds?

Now that is an excellent question.


F.R.Wilk perhaps ;-)



Richard H.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.vectrex (More info?)

>I think you need to clarify what you want to achieve.

It's the first time I've done anything like this, and to be honest, I
haven't the slightest idea how to manage the money / orders, and am very
grateful for any input.

Now I've done the leg work with pricing etc, I would be more than happy to
hand it over to someone with good organisational / accounting skills, who
isn't necessarily in the consortium.

We need a plan !


Latest consortium is - $2500

$1000 from me
$1000 from Cecil Casey
$500 from you





Richard H.

 

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> Speaking of which, has Mark received the
> SK order as of yet?

Not yet - still being manufactured.


Alex

 

[FURY]

Archived from groups: rec.games.vectrex (More info?)

Alex H wrote:
> > Speaking of which, has Mark received the
> > SK order as of yet?
>
> Not yet - still being manufactured.
>
>
> Alex



I just noticed that he's listing Multi-Carts
on eBay again, so I wonder if this means that
the cases are in?

George