Because if you factor in the mistakes people make that break it, the rate of needing replacement would be much higher. A lot of people kill their VESC, because it’s very easy to do that.
Apple care style warranties would mean if you fry your VESC, it gets replaced.
The whole point of this is that some aren’t buying the VESC in fear they will break it ( becuase the VESC has an image that its fragile, which I think it is). It is not cheap, at $99 or $170. You can get FVTs which work pretty good for a fraction of the price and less chance they will fry it.
@mohammedex with your business, it is hard to compare to the VESC. As it is, @onloop hardly marks the VESC price up past manufacturing costs. I bet that a $400 washing machine cost more like $100 to make (thus being sold at 400% markup). While a VESC, I’m guessing would cost similar to $70 each to make, and sold for a 15% or 20% markup at best. Compared to 400% markup, you can see why offering a warranty on the washing machine at 20% to 25% is possible, while doing so on the VESC is not.
My understanding is that the idea behind $170 is your factoring in the cost of 2 VESCs per person, so if they fry one or there is a manufacturing defect, the suppliers bottom line is (hopefully) not hurt.
Then it would seem that 3% failure rate is indeed a statistic in a vacuum and not how many customers are actually having issues with the products or there would be no solid reasoning behind not offering a better warranty…
My questions are, what is the reasoning behind the three options being given? What is justifying the price increases? The warranty alone? Are there upgrades being made to make it more user friendly/safe for tinkering/better protected or is there an acceptance that fragility is just an innate issue with VESC’s?
I lean towards the middle option, but the language being used is very careful and leads me to be wary of the warranty options being discussed here. If I am just paying extra for the warranty that’s “no questions asked” except send me proof and then we can debate who’s fault it is etc…then I’d rather roll the dice on a cheap unit and just be careful with it.
Edit: And basing the amount of email support/customer service on a price difference seems absolutely senseless… Whether I spent a dime yet with you or not I expect any decent business should promptly reply to all customer concerns and questions… Am I crazy?
Actually the extra warranty in my business doesn’t come from the manufacturers themselves. Its from an external firm, meaning that the external firm has to cover and covers the price of the machine, so following your example the customer would get a 400$ refund if the washing machine breaks. I would post a link that states the rules and stuff, but its all in danish Thats not what this is about though.
Onloop clearly states that the "warranty is really simple, we cover manufacturing faults!!!.
If you can’t accept that don’t buy from us. "
Meaning that we don’t have to “factor in the mistakes people make that break it” because those mistakes are not covered!
So I would think that about a 10$ increase should cover about the cost of the VESC’s with a manufacturing defect (10$ accounting for labor costs), and I think its only fair and natural to ask more than just exactly enough to cover the expenses. 15-20$ would be perfectly reasonable. but having to pay 30/70% more for a warranty seems a bit too much, but then again, customers dont usually decide the price they want to pay for a product, but since we do this time I clearly vouch for the cheaper option. Not to mention that shipping back to Australia from across the globe costs as much as a few eboards in itself, meaning that I would probably never use my warranty anyway.
Okay…Here’s my take on the matter. I like cheap prices…However, cheap quality drives me up the wall!! I’d rather pay more for quality than less for imminent landfill. I feel the cost of the VESC should include the amortization of associated expenses including limited customer service $$. I love great deals, but I am also a realist and don’t have the same expectations from a smaller company than I would for a corporate juggernaut. They can absorb a lot more loss and due to the greater infrastructure and allocate massive payroll expenditures towards a more efficient consolidated customer service model. Realistically, there is no way you can keep up with selling VESC if they aren’t good because you don’t have the manpower yet to handle the load. VESCs are going to have issues, many of which are caused by user error. People need to get a balanced approach to what they expect from a vendor. I feel as well that these VESC, being manufactured in the US under stringest quality standards, should rarely fail from mfg defect. I have worked as a Receiving Inspector and Cost Estimator for an ISO mfg for years, so I’ve seen some shit. With some contract pricing arrangements and such, the cost will continue to come down. Especially after the initial setup and tooling is paid for and approved. I also think that keeping the VESC under a bill will be the pivotal draw that will get the proverbial juices flowing, increasing demand, and thereby driving higher volume mfg runs for better piece pricing. IMHO…$99US bucks is going to be the draw!! Looks a lot better in ads and creates that fish “biting the worm” response. LOL That shit completely worked on me!!
So in short…Keep the price in the “impulse buy range”… under $100US, Get contract pricing on components to reduce mfg cost, and insulate yourself from losses as much as humanly possibly.
Sorry consumers…It sounds bad, but that’s business. That is how you are able to continue to provide these products, which is a service in and of itself. Volume is going to be the key to scaling up to meet consumer demand. It is the water in the pump, the gas in the engine, the meat in your taco…LOL There is a learning curve to building an ESK8. A vendor can’t be expected to hold someones hand and eat losses due to customer incompetence. Think about if you were to go to your local auto parts store and you bought a bunch of fuel injectors for your rig. (Without any prior experience in the field)You install them improperly and they fail catastrophically…Do you go back to the auto parts store and look for some sort of recompense? Hell No!! Because they are a PARTS store!! If you do, you suck and stuff costs more because of Aholes like you… Anywhoo…If you sell a fully complete board it gets a little more into the gray area. Because in theory, you are selling a finished and ready to use ride. I’m a total noob to this forum so don’t beat me up too bad!! Peace!!
Sort of my same logic. Asking customers if they want to pay less for a product, but get shitty customer service in return for the low price is bonkers. Charge whatever you have to in order to
Provide excellent customer service always.
Put out a high quality product that limits risk as much as possible for everyone.
Protect yourself from losses due to manufacturing errors, and customer complaints/returns ( regardless of if it’s just because they’re idiots or not)
I understand this is difficult with this specific item being that it is higher tech, in a growing, niche market of newbie DIY’ers like myself, but this is just good business 101. If you can’t do it all and still make money, sell something else. The community as a whole is done no good by comprising on any of these points. Or you can just be a good samaritan giving away your work for free if that’s your thing…
I would try to get to that theme from another point of view. In order to keep the prices low and to do profit I think you need a huge amount of customers. And to attract a lot of customers there must be one fool proof version of the VESC which is just plug and play and has a guarantee over a year.
Otherwise I think a lot of customers are too scared to buy an VESC.
I would realize that with a fool proof version of the bldc tool. In addition I would directly add a download link of the BLDC tool that matches the board which the customer receives in the order confirmation Email, and a link to a video where it is explained how to set it up.
In addition I would advertise with the easy arduino connection to VESC. A ton of people use arduino and so you would also get customers that are motivated DIY people and can’t program a micro controller themselfes. But I think that is what the VESC should be for. To give a lot of people a tool to realize their DIY projects…
To keep the same possibilities which the VESC has now I would keep the BLDC tool like it is at the moment and call it something like professional layout. If the customer makes a firmware update I would give a message to the customer that the no question return warranty isn’t valid any longer and directly implement a funktion in the BLDC tool that transmits the hardware production number of the VESC to your company. If anybody wants to play around with the firmware or other dangerous settings the garantee is just valid after the customer proofed that it is a production failure…
I think that could be a way to keep prices down, attract a lot new customers and rise profits …
well seeing as @chaka isn’t on here anymore and only does manufacturing warranty as well… I’m about to start buying 4layer pcb and maytech vesc in bulk and make my own bullet proof vesc for sale… The applecare insurance plan is a great idea @onloop then state in caps for the idiots “THIS IS A FRAGILE AND CIMPLICATED PIECE FOR NEW USERS, THE INSURANCE AND RESEARCH IN THIS PRODUCT IS RECOMMENDED BEFORE PURCHASE!!” idk that’s my opinion.
Thats not what this is about though.
