From: Charles Overy (cwho@lgmmodel.com)
Date: Wed Oct 16 2002 - 01:37:52 EEST
Consider
Price
-
- -
- -
Speed or Service --- Quality
Each point on this "service triangle" represents an opportunity both for
distinguishing your product and as a reason that your customer will choose
you business and pay you. YOu can increase the number of points if you want
and add technology, innovation etc. but it muddles the argument for the
moment.
Most products and brands are built on either one or two of the points.
Wal-Mart is a price leader. You get the best prices on commodity items.
Not a lot of service, not a lot of quality.
In the Lunch market, McDonalds built a brand on Speed then Buger King comes
along they have to compete on Price as well. Wendys comes along and says
we'll keep the speed but we want to be fast and tasty - Speed and Quality.
Each brand is build arround a slightly different service mix.
Back to RP. Z Corp, built a product based on being the fastest machine,
then Stratasys comes in with a low price machine so Z corp responds by
agreeing to compete on two points. Z Corp is not saying they can match the
finish quality of SLA or SLS. Stratasys isn't saying its as fast as Z Corp.
Each defines its own market segment.
If you try to compete consistently on all point of your market you will
probably set yourself up for failure. First, you will almost definately
fail to distinguish your brand in the market place. 2nd, you will leave a
lot of money on the table. 3rd as your business matures you will face
upward internal cost pressures, primarily wages. If you try to keep your
costs down you will lose you best people to your cometition who are doing
speed and quality but will pay their staff more for the same work. etc.
etc. etc.
There is plenty, plenty, plenty of room in the RP market right now. Define
your strengths, market to them. Worry about what YOUR competion is doing,
eg the people who sell the same product with the same service qualities that
you do. Make sure you have a strategic plan to implement if someone comes
stomping on your turf.
Neiman Marcus is not worring about Wal-mart although you can now buy action
figures at each.
Best wishes
Charles
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-rp-ml@rapid.lpt.fi [mailto:owner-rp-ml@rapid.lpt.fi]On
Behalf Of Rick
Sent: Tuesday, October 15, 2002 2:29 PM
To: 'Ron Clemons'; ''Rp-Ml (E-mail)'
Subject: RE: RE: Price idea for a resin/plastic model
I would love to see these files so I could give some input. It seems now a
days some people do not look for perfection and accuracy, they are willing
to pay for product from the stone age, which gives the quality houses who
take pride in each and every part that is built along with the best
materials on the market a hardship of trying to convince customers that you
get what you pay for, if people now a days want to pay cheap prices why
bother taking the advances of the technology and furthering it. Besides the
fly by night companies are only around til they lose enough that they can't
pay and then their gone.BUT the advance houses who give quality far above
the standards are still around. Figure that out !!! I agree 100% with Ron
Clemons,"you get whatyou pay for"
Richard Kiefer
3D Concepts 2 Design,Inc.
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-rp-ml@rapid.lpt.fi [mailto:owner-rp-ml@rapid.lpt.fi]On
Behalf Of Ron Clemons
Sent: Tuesday, October 15, 2002 2:01 PM
To: 'Rp-Ml (E-mail)
Subject: Re: RE: Price idea for a resin/plastic model
Okay, reality check:
> Any car vs. any car...
$8999 Hyundai Accent, base model
$128,950 Mercedes-Benz SL-Class, loaded
-----------
$119,951 Difference
> Same model cars, different grades...
$24,950 Mercedes-Benz C-Class, base model
$49,900 Mercedes-Benz C-Class, loaded
------------
$24,950 Difference
> Any RP technology vs. any RP technology...
$275 Stair-stepped model, built in .010" layers, +/- .100" tolerance
$6000 Polished SLA, built in .004" layers, +/- .005" tolerancing
_________
$5725 Difference
> Same RP technologies, different grades...
$600 Bubble-filled SLA from ragged out machine, .006" layers, +/- .010"
tol.
$6000 Near-perfect SLA from new 7000 machine, .004" layers, +/- .005"
tol.
___________
$5400 Difference
...Seems perfectly understandable to me. My dad wasn't so stupid when he
said, "usually you get what you pay for"!
...............................................
Ron Clemons
Harvest Technologies
www.harvest-tech.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bathsheba Grossman" <sheba@bathsheba.com>
To: "'Rp-Ml (E-mail)" <rp-ml@rapid.lpt.fi>
Sent: Tuesday, October 15, 2002 12:45 PM
Subject: [-3.60] RE: Price idea for a resin/plastic model
> On Tue, 15 Oct 2002, Billett Mike wrote:
> > However, an observation rather than a moan... whilst I understand
> > that the complexity of the part and accuracy we require will steer
> > the cost of the model, also that I was extremely vauge about my
> > description of the part. I have recieved "ball park" figures ranging
> > from $275 USD to $6000 USD! Quite a spread wouldn't you say?
>
> On the high side, but wide spreads do seem to be typical of the field.
> Just the other day I had a model quoted by several companies - in each
> case exactly the same part, built with the same machine, without any
> postprocessing - and got back figures ranging from $450 to over $1200.
>
> One has the feeling that many RP users are not price-conscious, and
> that as a result some companies operate in fantasy-land.
>
> All one can do is avoid them and hope the market shakes down
> eventually. It's all very well for situations where there is a lot of
> craftsmanship, but in cases where build hours are a fungible commodity
> - any working machine is as good as any other - sooner or later a
> market rate should emerge.
>
> -Sheba
> --
> Bathsheba Grossman (831) 429-8224
> Sculpting geometry bathsheba.com
> Creative prototyping protoshape.com
>
>
> For more information about the rp-ml, see http://rapid.lpt.fi/rp-ml/
>
For more information about the rp-ml, see http://rapid.lpt.fi/rp-ml/
For more information about the rp-ml, see http://rapid.lpt.fi/rp-ml/
For more information about the rp-ml, see http://rapid.lpt.fi/rp-ml/
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